Sample records for water resource management

This volume provides in-depth coverage of such topics as multi-reservoir system operation theory and practice, management of aquifer systems connected to streams using semi-analytical models, one-dimensional model of water quality and aquatic ecosystem-ecotoxicology in river systems, environmental and health impacts of hydraulic fracturing and shale gas, bioaugmentation for waterresources protection, wastewater renovation by flotation for water pollution control, determination of receiving water’s reaeration coefficient in the presence of salinity for water quality management, sensitivity analysis for stream water quality management, river ice process, and computer-aided mathematical modeling of water properties. This critical volume will serve as a valuable reference work for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, designers of waterresources systems, and scientists and researchers. The goals of the Handbook of Environmental Engineering series are: (1) to cover entire environmental fields, includin...

.... There are growing concerns about water as a renewable resource, its availability for a wide range of users, aquatic ecosystem health, and global issues relating to climate change, water security...

Water is precious natural resource for sustaining life and environment. Effective and sustainable management of waterresources is vital for ensuring sustainable development. In view of the vital importance of water for human and animal life, for maintaining ecological balance and for economic and developmental activities of all kinds, and considering its increasing scarcity, the planning and management of waterresource and its optimal, economical and equitable use has become a matter of the utmost urgency. Management of waterresources in India is of paramount importance to sustain one billion plus population. Watermanagement is a composite area with linkage to various sectors of Indian economy including the agricultural, industrial, domestic and household, power, environment, fisheries and transportation sector. The waterresourcesmanagement practices should be based on increasing the water supply and managing the water demand under the stressed water availability conditions. For maintaining the quality of freshwater, water quality management strategies are required to be evolved and implemented. Decision support systems are required to be developed for planning and management of the waterresources project. There is interplay of various factors that govern access and utilization of waterresources and in light of the increasing demand for water it becomes important to look for holistic and people-centered approaches for watermanagement. Clearly, drinking water is too fundamental and serious an issue to be left to one institution alone. It needs the combined initiative and action of all, if at all we are serious in socioeconomic development. Safe drinking water can be assured, provided we set our mind to address it. The present article deals with the review of various options for sustainable waterresourcemanagement in India.

Substantial progress has been made in applying ERTS-1 data to waterresources problems, nevertheless, more time and effort still appear necessary for further quantification of results, including the specification of thematic measurement accuracies. More modeling can be done very profitably. In particular, more strategy models describing the processes wherein ERTS-1 data would be acquired, analyzed, processed, and utilized in operational situations could be profitably accomplished. It is generally observed that the ERTS-1 data applicability is evident in several areas and that the next most general and substantive steps in the implementation of the data in operational situations would be greatly encouraged by the establishment of an operational earth resources satellite organization and capability. Further encouragement of this operational capability would be facilitated by all investigators striving to document their procedures as fully as possible and by providing time and cost comparisons between ERTS-1 and conventional acquisition approaches.

Proper management of waterresources leads to the development of the region. Nowadays there is an urgent problem - water shortage. Many European countries face this problem, Russia is not the excluding. In addition, there is a problem not only of water quantity, but quality as well. Although Rostov region is well provided with fresh water, the waterresources are unevenly disturbed within region. Rostov region is heavily populated and receive moderate rainfall. Groundwater has a limited capacity for renewal. At the same time, Rostov region is industrial and agricultural one that is why pressures from agriculture, industry and domestic users affect the quantity of waterresources. Both water quality and availability must be integrated in long-term planning and policy implications concerning watermanagement. In Russia there are high standards for water quality. Effectively managedwater-supply and resource protection systems generate the indispensable basis for agricultural and industrial production. Throughout the Region, urban and rural development has thrived where water sources have been effectively managed. Rostov region can be divided into three parts: northern districts, central part of the region and southern ones. Main cities in the region have not enough available drinking water. In the region ground water is used for curing and water supplying purpose.

A geocoded data management system applicable for hydrological applications was designed to demonstrate the utility of the Atmospheric and Oceanographic Information Processing System (AOIPS) for hydrological applications. Within that context, the geocoded hydrology data management system was designed to take advantage of the interactive capability of the AOIPS hardware. Portions of the WaterResource Data Management System which best demonstrate the interactive nature of the hydrology data management system were implemented on the AOIPS. A hydrological case study was prepared using all data supplied for the Bear River watershed located in northwest Utah, southeast Idaho, and western Wyoming.

Rural watermanagement is a basic requirement for the development of the primary sector and involves the exploitation of surface/ground-waterresources. Rational management requires the study of parameters that determine their exploitation mainly environmental, economic and social. These parameters reflect the influence of irrigation on the aquifer behaviour and on the level-streamflow of nearby rivers as well as on the profit from the farming activity for the farmers' welfare. The question of rural watermanagement belongs to the socio-political problems, since the factors involved are closely related to user behaviour and state position. By applying Game Theory one seeks to simulate the behaviour of the system 'surface/ground-waterresources to water-users' with a model based on a well-known game, "The Prisoner's Dilemma" for economic development of the farmers without overexploitation of the waterresources. This is a game of two players that have been extensively studied in Game Theory, economy and politics because it can describe real-world cases. The present proposal aims to investigate the rural watermanagement issue that is referred to two competitive small partnerships organised to manage their agricultural production and to achieve a better profit. For the farmers' activities water is required and ground-water is generally preferable because consists a more stable recourse than river-water which in most of the cases in Greece are of intermittent flow. If the two farmer groups cooperate and exploit the agreed water quantities they will gain equal profits and benefit from the sustainable availability of the water recourses (p). If both groups overexploitate the resource to maximize profit, then in the medium-term they will incur a loss (g), due to the waterresources reduction and the increase of the pumping costs. If one overexploit the resource while the other use the necessary required, then the first will gain great benefit (P), and the second will

and management of the resource which poses challenges due its nature as a ‘sedentary species’ colonizing the Barents Sea continental shelf shared by Norway and Russia and approaching the fishery protection zone around Svalbard. Conversely, little research has looked into the implications of the invasion partly...... fishery straddling Arctic waters which lends towards different productivity under different management and we delineate acceptable risk levels in order build up a bioeconomic framework that pinpoints the underlying trade-offs. We also address the difficulties of managing the resource under uncertainty......Along with the Arctic’s icy barriers melting which allows species to move northwards, new invasion corridors also arise with the opening of new shipping routes. The Snow Crab in the North West Atlantic is suspected to be a stowaway transferred via ballast water from the North Pacific...

In a context where waterresources are unevenly distributed and, in some regions precipitation and drought conditions are increasing, enhanced watermanagement is a major challenge to final consumers, businesses, waterresource users, watermanagers and policymakers in general. By linking a large range of sectors and issues, virtual water trade and water footprint analyses provide an appropriate framework to find potential solutions and contribute to a better management of waterresources. The water footprint is an indicator of freshwater use that looks not only at direct water use of a consumer or producer, but also at the indirect water use. The water footprint of a product is the volume of freshwater used to produce the product, measured over the full supply chain. It is a multi-dimensional indicator, showing water consumption volumes by source and polluted volumes by type of pollution; all components of a total water footprint are specified geographically and temporally. The water footprint breaks down into three components: the blue (volume of freshwater evaporated from surface or groundwater systems), green (water volume evaporated from rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture) and grey water footprint (the volume of polluted water associated with the production of goods and services). Closely linked to the concept of water footprint is that of virtual water trade, which represents the amount of water embedded in traded products. Many nations save domestic waterresources by importing water-intensive products and exporting commodities that are less water intensive. National water saving through the import of a product can imply saving water at a global level if the flow is from sites with high to sites with low water productivity. Virtual water trade between nations and even continents could thus be used as an instrument to improve global water use efficiency and to achieve water security in water-poor regions of the world. The virtual water trade

The increase in the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons, especially natural gas, from shale formations has been facilitated by advents in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies. Shale energy resources are very promising as an abundant energy source, though environmental challenges exist with their development, including potential adverse impacts to water quality. The well drilling and construction process itself has the potential to impact groundwater quality, however if proper protocols are followed and well integrity is established then impacts such as methane migration or drilling fluids releases can be minimized. Once a shale well has been drilled and hydraulically fractured, approximately 10-50% of the volume of injected fluids (flowback fluids) may flow out of the well initially with continued generation of fluids (produced fluids) throughout the well's productive life. Produced fluid TDS concentrations often exceed 200,000 mg/L, with elevated levels of strontium (Sr), bromide (Br), sodium (Na), calcium (Ca), barium (Ba), chloride (Cl), radionuclides originating from the shale formation as well as fracturing additives. Storing, managing and properly disposisng of these fluids is critical to ensure waterresources are not impacted by unintended releases. The most recent data in Pennsylvania suggests an estimated 85% of the produced fluids were being recycled for hydraulic fracturing operations, while many other states reuse less than 50% of these fluids and rely moreso on underground injection wells for disposal. Over the last few years there has been a shift to reuse more produced fluids during well fracturing operations in shale plays around the U.S., which has a combination of economic, regulatory, environmental, and technological drivers. The reuse of water is cost-competitive with sourcing of fresh water and disposal of flowback, especially when considering the costs of advanced treatment to or disposal well injection and lessens

Increasing environmental awareness and emerging trends such as water trading, energy market, deregulation and democratization of water-related services are challenging integrated waterresources planning and management worldwide. The traditional approach to watermanagement design based on sector-by-sector optimization has to be reshaped to account for multiple interrelated decision-makers and many stakeholders with increasing decision power. Centralized management, though interesting from a conceptual point of view, is unfeasible in most of the modern social and institutional contexts, and often economically inefficient. Coordinated management, where different actors interact within a full open trust exchange paradigm under some institutional supervision is a promising alternative to the ideal centralized solution and the actual uncoordinated practices. This is a significant issue in most of the Southern Alps regulated lakes, where upstream hydropower reservoirs maximize their benefit independently form downstream users; it becomes even more relevant in the case of transboundary systems, where watermanagement upstream affects water availability downstream (e.g. the River Zambesi flowing through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique or the Red River flowing from South-Western China through Northern Vietnam. In this study we apply Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) theory to design an optimal management in a decentralized way, considering a set of multiple autonomous agents acting in the same environment and taking into account the pay-off of individual water users, which are inherently distributed along the river and need to coordinate to jointly reach their objectives. In this way each real-world actor, representing the decision-making entity (e.g. the operator of a reservoir or a diversion dam) can be represented one-to-one by a computer agent, defined as a computer system that is situated in some environment and that is capable of autonomous action in this environment in

Watershed information systems that integrate data and analytical tools are critical enabling technologies to support Integrated WaterResourceManagement (IWRM) by converting data into information, and information into knowledge. Many factors bring people to the table to participate in an IWRM fra...

We reviewed published literature on waterresources ... to have sustainable agricultural production for the reduction of poverty ... health, tourism, coastal development, and biodiversity ...... Tanzania: Centre for Energy, Environment,. Science ...

In its broadest sense, virtual water refers to the water required for the production of food commodities. Issues relating to virtual water have drawn much attention in scientific communities and the political sphere since the mid 1990s. This paper provides a critical review of major research issues and results in the virtual water literature and pinpoints the remaining questions and the direction of research in future virtual water studies. We conclude that virtual water studies have helped to raise the awareness of water scarcity and its impact on food security and to improve the understanding of the role of food trade in compensating for water deficit. However, the studies so far have been overwhelmingly concerned with the international food trade, and many solely quantified virtual water flows associated with food trade. There is a general lack of direct policy relevance to the solutions to water scarcity and food insecurity, which are often local, regional, and river basin issues. The obscurity in the conceptual basis of virtual water also entails some confusion. The methodologies and databases of the studies are often crude, affecting the robustness and reliability of the results. Looking ahead, future virtual water studies need to enhance the policy relevance by strengthening their linkages with national and regional waterresourcesmanagement. Meanwhile, integrated approaches taking into consideration the spatial and temporal variations of blue and green waterresources availability and the complexity of natural, socioeconomic, and political conditions are necessary in assessing the trade-offs of the virtual water strategy in dealing with water scarcity. To this end, interdisciplinary efforts and quantitative methods supported by improved data availability are greatly important.

of the growing demand for water to irrigation, industrial and domestic uses. As a response, the Chinese authorities have launched the 2011 No. 1 Central Policy Document, which set targets related to water scarcity and water quality and marks the first step towards sustainable management of the Chinese water...... resources. In this context, the PhD study focused on development of approaches to inform integrated waterresourcesmanagement to cope with multiple and coupled challenges faced in China. The proposed method is to formulate river watermanagement as a joint hydroeconomic optimization problem that minimizes...... basin-wide costs of water supply and water curtailment. Water users are characterized by water demand and economic value, turning the complex watermanagement problem into a single objective cost minimization problem. The physical system and management scenarios are represented as constraints...

Recent droughts in California have highlighted and refocused attention on the problem of providing reliable sources of water to sustain the State`s future economic development. Specific elements of concern include not only the stability and availability of future water supplies in the State, but also how current surface and groundwater storage and distribution systems may be more effectively managed and upgraded, how treated wastewater may be more widely recycled, and how legislative and regulatory processes may be used or modified to address conflicts between advocates of urban growth, industrial, agricultural, and environmental concerns. California is not alone with respect to these issues. They are clearly relevant throughout the West, and are becoming more so in other parts of the US. They have become increasingly important in developing and highly populated nations such as China, India, and Mexico. They are critically important in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, especially as they relate to regional stability and security issues. Indeed, in almost all cases, there are underlying themes of `reliability` and `sustainability` that pertain to the assurance of current and future water supplies, as well as a broader set of `stability` and `security` issues that relate to these assurances--or lack thereof--to the political and economic future of various countries and regions. In this latter sense, and with respect to regions such as China, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, waterresource issues may take on a very serious strategic nature, one that is most illustrative and central to the emerging notion of `environmental security.` In this report, we have identified a suite of technical tools that, when developed and integrated together, may prove effective in providing regional governments the ability to manage their waterresources. Our goal is to formulate a framework for an Integrated Systems Analysis (ISA): As a strategic planning tool for managing

Based on the "New Periodic Table" (NPT) of 2×2 order games by Robinson and Goforth (2005) this study explores all possible game structures, representing a conflict over a shared waterresource between two countries. Each game is analyzed to find the possible outcomes (equilibria), Pareto-optimal outcomes, as well as dominant strategies of the players. It is explained why in practice, parties may behave in a way, resulting in Pareto-inferior outcomes and how parties may change their behavior with the structural changes of the game. Further, how parties may develop cooperative solutions through negotiations and involvement of third parties. This work provides useful policy insights into shared waterresource problems and identifies the likely structure of such games in the future and the evolution path of the games.

Key documents such as the European Water Framework Directive and the U.S. Clean Water Act state that public and stakeholder participation in waterresourcemanagement is required. Participation aims to enhance resourcemanagement and involve individuals and groups in a democratic way. Evaluation of participatory programs and projects is necessary to assess whether these objectives are being achieved and to identify how participatory programs and projects can be improved. The different methods of evaluation can be classified into three groups: (i) process evaluation assesses the quality of participation process, for example, whether it is legitimate and promotes equal power between participants, (ii) intermediary outcome evaluation assesses the achievement of mainly nontangible outcomes, such as trust and communication, as well as short- to medium-term tangible outcomes, such as agreements and institutional change, and (iii) resourcemanagement outcome evaluation assesses the achievement of changes in resourcemanagement, such as water quality improvements. Process evaluation forms a major component of the literature but can rarely indicate whether a participation program improves waterresourcemanagement. Resourcemanagement outcome evaluation is challenging because resource changes often emerge beyond the typical period covered by the evaluation and because changes cannot always be clearly related to participation activities. Intermediary outcome evaluation has been given less attention than process evaluation but can identify some real achievements and side benefits that emerge through participation. This review suggests that intermediary outcome evaluation should play a more important role in evaluating participation in waterresourcemanagement.

This paper describes governance arrangements in regional spatial planning and waterresourcesmanagement at the regional level from a normative point of view. It discusses the need to integrate spatial planning and resourcesmanagement in order to deliver socially sustainable integral territorial ma

Researchers and journalists in Japan recently proposed forest management as an alternative to dam reservoir development for waterresourcemanagement. To examine the validity of the proposal, we compared the potential low-flow increase due to forest clearcutting with the increase due to dam reservoir development. Here, we focused on forest clearcutting as an end member among various types of forest management. We first analyzed runoff data for five catchments and found a positive correlation between annual precipitation and the low-flow increase due to deforestation. We then examined the increase in low-flow rates due to dam reservoir development (dQ(d)) using inflow and outflow data for 45 dam reservoirs across Japan. Using the relationship between annual precipitation and the low-flow increase due to deforestation, we estimated the potential increase in the low-flow rate for each dam reservoir watershed if forests in the watershed were clearcut (dQ(f)). Only 6 of the 45 samples satisfied dQ(f)>dQ(d), indicating that the potential increase in the low-flow rate due to forest clearcutting was less than the increase due to dam reservoir development in most cases. Twenty-five of the 45 samples satisfied dQ(f)<0.2 dQ(d), indicating the potential increase in the low-flow rate due to forest clearcutting was less than 20% of the increase due to dam reservoir development in more than half the cases. Therefore, forest management is far less effective for waterresourcemanagement than dam reservoir development is in Japan.

Recently, the changes in laws and regulations, such as the revised Law on WaterResources in 2012, have sought to provide a legal framework for the internationally recognized practices of Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) in Vietnam. With IWRM being a novel approach for Vietnam, it would

As one of the world's most water-abundant countries, Nepal has plenty of water yet resources are both spatially and temporally unevenly distributed. With a population heavily engaged in subsistence farming, whereby livelihoods are entirely dependent on rain-fed agriculture, changes in freshwater resources can substantially impact upon survival. The two main sources of water in Nepal come from monsoon precipitation and glacial runoff. The former is essential for sustaining livelihoods where communities have little or no access to perennial waterresources. Much of Nepal's population live in the southern Mid-Hills and Terai regions where dependency on the monsoon system is high and climate-environment interactions are intricate. Any fluctuations in precipitation can severely affect essential potable resources and food security. As the population continues to expand in Nepal, and pressures build on access to adequate and clean waterresources, there is a need for institutions to cooperate and increase the effectiveness of watermanagement policies. This research presents a framework detailing three fundamental pillars for managingwaterresources to achieve sustainable water security in Nepal. These are (i) resource reliability; (ii) adequate accessibility; and (iii) effective governance. Evidence is presented which indicates that waterresources are adequate in Nepal to sustain the population. In addition, aspects of climate change are having less impact than previously perceived e.g. results from trend analysis of precipitation time-series indicate a decrease in monsoon extremes and interannual variation over the last half-century. However, accessibility to clean waterresources and the potential for water storage is limiting the use of these resources. This issue is particularly prevalent given the heterogeneity in spatial and temporal distributions of water. Water governance is also ineffective due to government instability and a lack of continuity in policy

Full Text Available The subsidiarity principle of waterresourcesmanagement suggests that watermanagement and service delivery should take place at the lowest appropriate governance level. The principle is attractive for several reasons, primarily because: 1 the governance level can be reduced to reflect environmental characteristics, such as the hydrological borders of a watershed that would otherwise cross administrative boundaries; 2 decentralization promotes community and stakeholder engagement when decision-making is localized; 3 inefficiencies are reduced by eliminating reliance on central government bureaucracies and budgetary constraints; and 4 laws and institutions can be adapted to reflect localized conditions at a scale where integrated natural resourcesmanagement and climate change adaptation is more focused. Accordingly, the principle of subsidiarity has been welcomed by many states committed to decentralized governance, integrated waterresourcesmanagement, and/or civic participation. However, applications of decentralization have not been uniform, and in some cases have produced frustrating outcomes for states and waterresources. Successful decentralization strategies are heavily dependent on dedicated financial resources and human resource capacity. This article explores the nexus between the principle of subsidiarity and the enabling environment, in the hope of articulating factors likely to contribute to, or detract from, the success of decentralized waterresourcesmanagement. Case studies from Haiti, Rwanda, and the United States’ Florida WaterManagement Districts provide examples of the varied stages of decentralization.

Full Text Available The subsidiarity principle of waterresourcesmanagement suggests that watermanagement and service delivery should take place at the lowest appropriate governance level. The principle is attractive for several reasons, primarily because: 1 the governance level can be reduced to reflect environmental characteristics, such as the hydrological borders of a watershed that would otherwise cross administrative boundaries; 2 decentralization promotes community and stakeholder engagement when decision-making is localized; 3 inefficiencies are reduced by eliminating reliance on central government bureaucracies and budgetary constraints; and 4 laws and institutions can be adapted to reflect localized conditions at a scale where integrated natural resourcesmanagement and climate change adaptation is more focused. Accordingly, the principle of subsidiarity has been welcomed by many states committed to decentralized governance, integrated waterresourcesmanagement, and/or civic participation. However, applications of decentralization have not been uniform, and in some cases have produced frustrating outcomes for states and waterresources. Successful decentralization strategies are heavily dependent on dedicated financial resources and human resource capacity. This article explores the nexus between the principle of subsidiarity and the enabling environment, in the hope of articulating factors likely to contribute to, or detract from, the success of decentralized waterresourcesmanagement. Case studies from Haiti, Rwanda, and the United States’ Florida WaterManagement Districts provide examples of the varied stages of decentralization.

Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) has often been interpreted and implemented in a way that is only really suited to countries with the most developed water infrastructures and management capacities. While sympathetic to many of the criticisms levelled at the IWRM concept and recognising

This report looks at, and beyond, the management hydrological variability to interventions aimed at decreasing the vulnerability of the economy to these shocks. It helps clarify linkages between the country's economic performance and its waterresources endowment and management. It then uses this analysis to recommend both waterresource strategies and economic and sectoral policies that will enhance growth and insulate the Ethiopian people and economy from the often devastating, economy-wide...

This brief introduces the fundamental theory and development of managing radio resources using a water-filling algorithm that can optimize system performance in wireless communication. Geometric Water-Filling (GWF) is a crucial underlying tool in emerging communication systems such as multiple input multiple output systems, cognitive radio systems, and green communication systems. Early chapters introduce emerging wireless technologies and provide a detailed analysis of water-filling. The brief investigates single user and multi-user issues of radio resourcemanagement, allocation of resources

Many challenges, including climate change, face the Nation's watermanagers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has provided estimates of how climate may change, but more understanding of the processes driving the changes, the sequences of the changes, and the manifestation of these global changes at different scales could be beneficial. Since the changes will likely affect fundamental drivers of the hydrological cycle, climate change may have a large impact on waterresources and waterresourcesmanagers. The purpose of this interagency report prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is to explore strategies to improve watermanagement by tracking, anticipating, and responding to climate change. This report describes the existing and still needed underpinning science crucial to addressing the many impacts of climate change on waterresourcesmanagement.

Some of the world's most valuable aquatic ecosystems such as deltas, lagoons and estuaries are located in the coastal zone. However, the coastal zone and its aquatic ecosystems are in many places under environmental stress from human activities. About 50% of the human population lives within 200 km of the coastline, and the population density is increasing every day. In addition, the majority of urban centres are located in the coastal zone. It is commonly known that there are important linkages between the activities in the upstream river basins and the environment conditions in the downstream coastal zones. Changes in river flows, e.g. caused by irrigation, hydropower and water supply, have changed salinity in estuaries and lagoons. Land use changes, such as intensified agricultural activities and urban and industrial development, cause increasing loads of nutrients and a variety of chemicals resulting in considerable adverse impacts in the coastal zones. It is recognised that the solution to such problems calls for an integrated approach. Therefore, the terms Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) are increasingly in focus on the international agenda. Unfortunately, the concepts of IWRM and ICZM are mostly being developed independently from each other by separate management bodies using their own individual approaches and tools. The present paper describes how modelling tools can be used to link IWRM and ICZM. It draws a line from the traditional sectoral use of models for the Istanbul Master Planning and assessment of the water quality and ecological impact in the Bosphorus Strait and the Black Sea 10 years ago, to the most recent use of models in a Water Framework Directive (WFD) context for one of the selected Pilot River Basins in Denmark used for testing of the WFD Guidance Documents.

In Thailand, water is life. Recently however, water has been more associated with conflict and problems, both natural and manmade, from drought to floods to dams to pollution. This paper investigates two major problems related to the management of waterresources, dry-season allocation and water quality. In Thailand, water allocation has been considered an administrative problem and solutions have largely been supply- oriented. Economic instruments have not been used to solve them. In dealing...

Full Text Available The ecosystem provides us with all the goods and services that form the base of our economic, social cultural and spiritual life. Good scientific information will be required for managing the environment by using the Ecosystem approach. The groundwater is considered as a possible supplementary of alternative water source, and some factories already started shifting their water source from surface water to groundwater. Uncontrolled use of groundwater, however, may induce serious environmental problems, e.g., land subsidence, saltwater intrusion to the aquifer. The establishment of a balanced multi-sector and integrated groundwater resources and environmental management plan is deemed urgent to attain a sustainable groundwater resources use and to maintain a favorable groundwater quality in the Langat Basin. To achieve sustainable lifestyle in large scale ecosystem requires integrated and holistic approaches from all stakeholders. Through Aquifer Storage Recovery (ASR it was determined a revolutionized waterresourcesmanagement, providing a sustainable supply while minimizing the environmental impact of surface storage. By using underground geologic formations to store water, by integrated waterresourcesmanagement advisory system (IWRMAS aquifer recharge can now easily applied to obviate waterresource and environmental problems, including seasonal shortages, emergency storage, ground subsidence and saline intrusion.

The increased demands for water and land in Indonesia as a consequence of the population growth and economic development has reportedly have been accelerated from the year to year. The spatial and temporal variability of human induced hydrological changes in a river basin could affect quality and quantity of water. The challenge is that integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM) should cope with complex issues of water in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an eq...

Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) recommends, among other things, that the management of waterresources systems be carried out at the lowest appropriate level in order to increase the transparency, acceptability and efficiency of the decision-making process. Empowering water users and stakeholders transforms the decision-making process by enlarging the number of point of views that must be considered as well as the set of rules through which decisions are taken. This paper investigates the impact of different group decision-making approaches on the operating policies of a waterresource. To achieve this, the waterresource allocation problem is formulated as an optimization problem which seeks to maximize the aggregated satisfaction of various water users corresponding to different approaches to collective choice, namely the utilitarian and the egalitarian ones. The optimal operating policies are then used in simulation and compared. The concepts are illustrated with a multipurpose reservoir in Chile. The analysis of simulation results reveals that if this reservoir were to be managed by its water users, both approaches to collective choice would yield significantly different operating policies. The paper concludes that the transfer of management to water users must be carefully implemented if a reasonable trade-off between equity and efficiency is to be achieved.

Full Text Available Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM recommends, among other things, that the management of waterresources systems be carried out at the lowest appropriate level in order to increase the transparency, acceptability and efficiency of the decision-making process. Empowering water users and stakeholders transforms the decision-making process by enlarging the number of point of views that must be considered as well as the set of rules through which decisions are taken. This paper investigates the impact of different group decision-making approaches on the operating policies of a waterresource. To achieve this, the waterresource allocation problem is formulated as an optimization problem which seeks to maximize the aggregated satisfaction of various water users corresponding to different approaches to collective choice, namely the utilitarian and the egalitarian ones. The optimal operating policies are then used in simulation and compared. The concepts are illustrated with a multipurpose reservoir in Chile. The analysis of simulation results reveals that if this reservoir were to be managed by its water users, both approaches to collective choice would yield significantly different operating policies. The paper concludes that the transfer of management to water users must be carefully implemented if a reasonable trade-off between equity and efficiency is to be achieved.

Water allocations as well as water quality and health concerns are often due to inadequate policies and institutions, which pose major challenges for policy reform. The necessary ingredients of such reform include four elements: rules to improve the decision-making process about water projects, prin

Water allocations as well as water quality and health concerns are often due to inadequate policies and institutions, which pose major challenges for policy reform. The necessary ingredients of such reform include four elements: rules to improve the decision-making process about water projects,

The Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST) is a public-domain software application designed to aid decision makers with integrated waterresourcesmanagement. The tool allows waterresourcemanagers and planners to screen a wide-range of management practices for c...

In this paper the integration of waterresourcesmanagement with regard to reservoir management in an eco-hydrological model is described. The model was designed to simulate different reservoir management options, such as optimized hydropower production, irrigation intake from the reservoir or optimized provisioning downstream. The integrated model can be used to investigate the impacts of climate variability/change on discharge or to study possible adaptation strategies in terms of reservoir management. The study area, the Upper Niger Basin located in the West African Sahel, is characterized by a monsoon-type climate. Rainfall and discharge regime are subject to strong seasonality. Measured data from a reservoir are used to show that the reservoir model and the integrated management options can be used to simulate the regulation of this reservoir. The inflow into the reservoir and the discharge downstream of the reservoir are quite distinctive, which points out the importance of the inclusion of waterresourcesmanagement.

Full Text Available The increased demands for water and land in Indonesia as a consequence of the population growth and economic development has reportedly have been accelerated from the year to year. The spatial and temporal variability of human induced hydrological changes in a river basin could affect quality and quantity of water. The challenge is that integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM should cope with complex issues of water in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner, without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. Even though the government of Indonesia has adopted new paradigm for waterresourcesmanagement by the enactment of Law No. 7/2004 on waterresources, the implementation of IWRM may face the technical and managerial challenges. This paper briefly reviews the implementation of IWRM and related principles and provides an overview of potential water-related issues and progress towards implementation of IWRM in Indonesia. The availability of water and a broader range of water-related issues are identified. The recommended actions for improving the future IWRM are suggested. Challenges to improve the capacity buildings of IWRM related to enabling environment, institutional frameworks and management instruments are verified to contribute to the future directions for efficient problem-solving ability.

As water is increasingly recognized as a scarce resource, the use of economic arrangements for waterresourcesmanagement seems increasingly promising. Experiences show that economic arrangements can contribute to a more efficient use of waterresources but only if specific conditions are met, relat

Full Text Available Indigenous peoples in North America have a long history of understanding their societies as having an intimate relationship with their physical environments. Their cultures, traditions, and identities are based on the ecosystems and sacred places that shape their world. Their respect for their ancestors and ‘Mother Earth’ speaks of unique value and knowledge systems different than the value and knowledge systems of the dominant United States settler society. The value and knowledge systems of each indigenous and non-indigenous community are different but collide when waterresources are endangered. One of the challenges that face indigenous people regarding the management of water relates to their opposition to the commodification of water for availability to select individuals. External researchers seeking to work with indigenous peoples on water research or management must learn how to design research or watermanagement projects that respect indigenous cultural contexts, histories of interactions with settler governments and researchers, and the current socio-economic and political situations in which indigenous peoples are embedded. They should pay particular attention to the process of collaborating on waterresource topics and management with and among indigenous communities while integrating Western and indigenous sciences in ways that are beneficial to both knowledge systems. The objectives of this paper are to (1 to provide an overview of the context of current indigenous watermanagement issues, especially for the U.S. federally recognized tribes in the Southwestern United States; (2 to synthesize approaches to engage indigenous persons, communities, and governments on waterresources topics and management; and (3 to compare the successes of engaging Southwestern tribes in five examples to highlight some significant activities for collaborating with tribes on waterresources research and management. In discussing the engagement

Botswana is generally regarded as an African ‘success story’. Nearly four decades of unabated economic growth, multi-party democracy, conservative decision-making and low-levels of corruption have made Botswana the darling of the international donor community. One consequence of rapid and sustained economic development is that waterresources use and demands have risen dramatically in a primarily arid/semi-arid environment. Policy makers recognize that supply is limited and that deliberate steps must be taken to manage demand. To this end, and in line with other members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Botswana devised a National Water Master Plan (NWMP) and undertook a series of institutional and legal reforms throughout the 1990s so as to make waterresources use more equitable, efficient and sustainable. In other words, the stated goal is to work toward Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) in both policy and practice. However, policy measures have had limited impact on de facto practice. This paper reflects our efforts to understand the disjuncture between policy and practice. The information presented here combines a review of primary and secondary literatures with key informant interviews. It is our view that a number of constraints-cultural, power political, managerial-combine to hinder efforts toward sustainable forms of waterresources use. If IWRM is to be realized in the country, these constraints must be overcome. This, however, is no small task.

Droughts bring great opportunities to better understand and improve water systems. California's economic powerhouse relies on highly engineered water systems to fulfill large and growing urban and agricultural water demands. Current and past droughts show these systems are highly robust and resilient to droughts, as they recover promptly. However, environmental systems remain highly vulnerable and have shown less resilience to drought, with each drought bringing additional native species closer to extinction, often with little recovery following the drought. This paper provides an overview of the economic and ecosystem impacts of the recent multi-year drought in California in the context of a global economy. We explore the potential of water markets, groundwater management and use of remote sensing technology to improve understanding of adaptation to drought. Insights for future management of waterresources and scientific work are discussed.

Full Text Available The Earth has entered the Anthropocene epoch that is dominated by humans who demand unprecedented quantities of goods and services from forests. The science of forest hydrology and watershed management generated during the past century provides a basic understanding of relationships among forests and water and offers management principles that maximize the benefits of forests for people while sustaining watershed ecosystems. However, the rapid pace of changes in climate, disturbance regimes, invasive species, human population growth, and land use expected in the 21st century is likely to create substantial challenges for watershed management that may require new approaches, models, and best management practices. These challenges are likely to be complex and large scale, involving a combination of direct and indirect biophysical watershed responses, as well as socioeconomic impacts and feedbacks. We discuss the complex relationships between forests and water in a rapidly changing environment, examine the trade-offs and conflicts between water and other resources, and propose new management approaches for sustaining waterresources in the Anthropocene.

Population growth and improving standards of living, coupled with dramatically increased urbanization, are placing increased pressures on available waterresources, necessitating new approaches to urban watermanagement. The tradition linear "take, make, waste" approach to managingwater increasingly is proving to be unsustainable, as it is leading to water stress (insufficient water supplies), unsustainable resource (energy and chemicals) consumption, the dispersion of nutrients into the aquatic environment (especially phosphorus), and financially unstable utilities. Different approaches are needed to achieve economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Fortunately, a toolkit consisting of stormwater management/rainwater harvesting, water conservation, water reclamation and reuse, energy management, nutrient recovery, and source separation is available to allow more closed-loop urban water and resourcemanagement systems to be developed and implemented. Water conservation and water reclamation and reuse (multiple uses) are becoming commonplace in numerous water-short locations. Decentralization, enabled by new, high-performance treatment technologies and distributed stormwater management/rainwater harvesting, is furthering this transition. Likewise, traditional approaches to residuals management are evolving, as higher levels of energy recovery are desired, and nutrient recovery and reuse is to be enhanced. A variety of factors affect selection of the optimum approach for a particular urban area, including local hydrology, available water supplies, water demands, local energy and nutrient-management situations, existing infrastructure, and utility governance structure. A proper approach to economic analysis is critical to determine the most sustainable solutions. Stove piping (i.e., separate management of drinking, storm, and waste water) within the urban water and resourcemanagement profession must be eliminated. Adoption of these new approaches to urban

We present an ongoing project to co-produce science and policy called Collaborative Planning for Climate Change: An Integrated Approach to Water-Planning, Climate Downscaling, and Robust Decision-Making. The project responds to motivations related to dealing with sustainability challenges in research and practice: (a) state and municipal watermanagers seek research that addresses their planning needs; (b) the scientific literature and funding agencies call for more meaningful engagement between science and policy communities, in ways that address user needs, while advancing basic research; and (c) empirical research contributes to methods for the design and implementation of collaborative projects. To understand how climate change might impact waterresources and management in the Southwest US, our project convenes local, state, and federal watermanagement practitioners with climate-, hydrology-, policy-, and decision scientists. Three areas of research inform this collaboration: (a) the role of paleo-hydrology in waterresources scenario construction; (b) the types of uncertainties that impact decision-making beyond climate and modeling uncertainty; and (c) basin-scale statistical and dynamical downscaling of climate models to generate hydrologic projections for regional waterresources planning. The project engages all participants in the research process, from research design to workshops that build capacity for understanding data generation and sources of uncertainty to the discussion of watermanagement decision contexts. A team of “science-practice translators” facilitates the collaboration between academic and professional communities. In this presentation we contextualize the challenges and opportunities of use-inspired science-policy research collaborations by contrasting the initial project design with the process of implementation. We draw from two sources to derive lessons learned: literature on collaborative research, and evaluations provided by

The main aim of water companies is to have a reliable and safe water supply system. To fulfil their duty the water companies have to consider both water quality and quantity issues and challenges. Climate change and population growth will have an impact on waterresources both in terms of available water and river water quality. Traditionally, a distinct separation between water quality and abstraction has existed. However, water quality can be a bottleneck in a system since water treatment works can only treat water if it meets certain standards. For instance, high turbidity and large phytoplankton content can increase sharply the cost of treatment or even make river water unfit for human consumption purposes. It is vital for water companies to be able to characterise the quantity and quality of water under extreme weather events and to consider the occurrence of eventual periods when water abstraction has to cease due to water quality constraints. This will give them opportunity to decide on waterresource planning and potential changes to reduce the system failure risk. We present a risk-based approach for incorporating extreme events, based on future climate change scenarios from a large ensemble of climate model realisations, into integrated waterresources model through combined use of water allocation (WATHNET) and water quality (INCA) models. The annual frequency of imposed restrictions on demand is considered as measure of reliability. We tested our approach on Thames region, in the UK, with 100 extreme events. The results show increase in frequency of imposed restrictions when water quality constraints were considered. This indicates importance of considering water quality issues in drought management plans.

@@ As a component of the CAS Action Plan for the Development of China's West, a research project on integrated management of waterresources was initiated on 10 June at the Research and Experiment Station for Desert Ecological Hydrology in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, an outpost of the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute of CAS. CAS Vice President Li Jiayang attended the launching ceremony.

Two main tasks are to be implemented for elaboration of the governmental water distribution criteria in Central Asia: 1 -development of the common methodological basis for the intergovernmental water distribution; and 2 - to reopen and continue both theoretical and experimental researches of various aspects of the wastewater reuse. The prospects of socio economic development of all Central Asian countries are substantially defined by the waterresources availability. The waterresources of Central Asia belong, mainly, watersheds of the Syr-Darya and Amu Darya rivers. The basic flow of Amu Darya is formed in territory of Tajikistan. Then the Amu Darya river proceeds along border of Afghanistan with Uzbekistan, crosses Turkmenistan and again comes back to Uzbekistan and then runs into the Aral Sea. The Syr-Darya is second river on the water discharge and is first river on length in Central Asia. The basic flow of Syr Darya is formed in territory of Kyrgyzstan. Then the Syr-Darya river crosses of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and runs into the Aral Sea in territory of Kazakhstan. During the Soviet Union the waterresources of two river watersheds were divided among the Central Asian republics on the basis of the general plans developed by the center in Moscow. In the beginning of 90s years, after taking of sovereignty by the former Soviet republics, the unified control system of waterresourcesmanagement was abolished and the various approaches to its transformation caused by features of the national economy developing, elected models of transition from command to market mechanisms of economic activity, and also specificity of political and social processes in each of the states of region were planned. The distinctions of modern priorities of economic development of the states of region have generated the contradiction of interests in the intergovernmental water distribution that can in the long term become complicated even more in connection with the increasing of water

doubling crop yields cannot be achieved without reallocation of available waterresources. The findings have wider implications for climate change assessment and waterresourcemanagement, because the region, with high population growth and limited capacity to adapt, are the primary targets of land and water grabs.

The Ruhr, with an average flow of 80.5 m3/s at its mouth, is a comparatively small tributary to the Rhine River that has to perform an important task: to secure the water supply of more than 5 million people and of the industry in the densely populated region north of the river. The complex watermanagement system and network applied by the Ruhrverband in the natural Ruhr River Basin has been developed step by step, over decades since 1913. And from the beginning, its major goal has been to achieve optimal conditions for the people living in the region. For this purpose, a functional water supply and wastewater disposal infrastructure has been built up. The development of these structures required and still requires multi-dimensional planning and performance. Since the river serves as receiving water and at the same time as a source of drinking water, the above-standard efforts of Ruhrverband for cleaner water also help to conserve nature and wildlife. Ruhrverband has summed up its environmental awareness in the slogan: "For the people and for the environment". This basic water philosophy, successfully applied to the Ruhr for more than 80 years, will be continued in accordance with the new European Water Framework Directive, enacted in 2000, which demands integrated waterresourcesmanagement in natural river basins, by including the good ecological status of surface waterbodies as an additional goal.

Full Text Available Many international efforts have been made to encourage integrated waterresourcesmanagement through recommendations from both the academic and the aid and development sectors. Recently, it has been argued that integrated waterresourcesmanagement can help foster better adaptation of management and policy responses to emerging water crises. Nevertheless, few empirical studies have assessed how this type of management works in practice and what an integrated watermanagement system implies for institutional adaptation and change. Our assessment of the Israeli water sector provides one view of how they can be shaped by an integrated structure in the water sector. Our analysis of recent efforts to adapt Israel's watermanagement system to new conditions and uncertainties reveals that the interconnectedness of the system and the consensus decision-making process, led by a dominant actor who coordinates and sets the policy agenda, tends to increase the complexity of negotiations. In addition, the physical integration of watermanagement leads to sunk costs of large-scale physical infrastructure. Both these factors create a path dependency that empowers players who receive benefits from maintaining the existing system. This impedes institutional reform of the watermanagement system and suggests that integrated waterresourcesmanagement creates policy and management continuity that may only be amenable to incremental changes. In contrast, real adaptation that requires reversibility and the ability to change management strategies in response to new information or monitoring of specific management outcomes.

Full Text Available Significant progress has been made during recent yearsin applying information technologiesto waterresourcemanagement from a multidisciplinary field called hydroinformatics; this can change the focus of environmental impact assessment and decision-making according to available environmental resources. This article presents an image retrieval system which uses the Universidad de la Amazonia’s (ColombiaAquatic Ecosystem Quality and Preservation Research Group’s (CAPREA digital image collection. Automaticpicture classification (having attributes relative to water colour, edges and flow type is proposed which has beenbased onDinnertein’s classification, adapted by the Universidad Nacional de Colombia’sHydrology and Meteorology Institute and Environment Studies in 2001.

Waterresourcesmanagement schemes generally imply the availability of a spectrum of various sources of water with a variability of quantity and quality in space and time, and the availability and suitability of storage facilities to cover various demands of water consumers on quantity and quality. Aquifers are generally regarded as suitable reservoirs since large volumes of water can be stored in the subsurface, water is protected from contamination and evaporation and the underground passage assists in the removal of at least some groundwater contaminants. Favorable aquifer properties include high vertical hydraulic conductivities for infiltration, large storage coefficients and not too large hydraulic gradients / conductivities. The latter factors determine the degree of discharge, i.e. loss of groundwater. Considering the above criteria, fractured and karstified aquifers appear to not really fulfill the respective conditions for storage reservoirs. Although infiltration capacity is relatively high, due to low storativity and high hydraulic conductivities, the small quantity of water stored is rapidly discharged. However, for a number of specific conditions, even karst aquifers are suitable for groundwater management schemes. They can be subdivided into active and passive management strategies. Active management options include strategies such as overpumping, i.e. the depletion of the karst waterresources below the spring outflow level, the construction of subsurface dams to prevent rapid discharge. Passive management options include the optimal use of the discharging groundwater under natural discharge conditions. System models that include the superposition of the effect of the different compartments soil zone, epikarst, vadose and phreatic zone assist in the optimal usage of the available groundwater resources, while taking into account the different water reservoirs. The elaboration and implementation of groundwater protection schemes employing well

Full Text Available This article represents the second report by an ASCE Task Committee "Infrastructure Impacts of Landscape-driven Weather Change" under the ASCE Watershed Management Technical Committee and the ASCE Hydroclimate Technical Committee. Herein, the 'infrastructure impacts" are referred to as infrastructure-sensitive changes in weather and climate patterns (extremes and non-extremes that are modulated, among other factors, by changes in landscape, land use and land cover change. In this first report, the article argued for explicitly considering the well-established feedbacks triggered by infrastructure systems to the land-atmosphere system via landscape change. In this report by the ASCE Task Committee (TC, we present the results of this ASCE TC's survey of a cross section of experienced watermanagers using a set of carefully crafted questions. These questions covered waterresourcesmanagement, infrastructure resiliency and recommendations for inclusion in education and curriculum. We describe here the specifics of the survey and the results obtained in the form of statistical averages on the 'perception' of these managers. Finally, we discuss what these 'perception' averages may indicate to the ASCE TC and community as a whole for stewardship of the civil engineering profession. The survey and the responses gathered are not exhaustive nor do they represent the ASCE-endorsed viewpoint. However, the survey provides a critical first step to developing the framework of a research and education plan for ASCE. Given the WaterResources Reform and Development Act passed in 2014, we must now take into account the perceived concerns of the watermanagement community.

An integrated modeling system, developed in the framework of "Hydromentor" research project, is applied to evaluate crop water requirements for operational waterresourcesmanagement at Lake Karla watershed, Greece. The framework includes coupled components for operation of hydrotechnical projects (reservoir operation and irrigation works) and estimation of agricultural water demands at several spatial scales using remote sensing. The study area was sub-divided into irrigation zones based on land use maps derived from Landsat 5 TM images for the year 2007. Satellite-based energy balance for mapping evapotranspiration with internalized calibration (METRIC) was used to derive actual evapotranspiration (ET) and crop coefficient (ETrF) values from Landsat TM imagery. Agricultural water needs were estimated using the FAO method for each zone and each control node of the system for a number of waterresourcesmanagement strategies. Two operational strategies of hydro-technical project development (present situation without operation of the reservoir and future situation with the operation of the reservoir) are coupled with three water demand strategies. In total, eight (8) watermanagement strategies are evaluated and compared. The results show that, under the existing operational waterresourcesmanagement strategies, the crop water requirements are quite large. However, the operation of the proposed hydro-technical projects in Lake Karla watershed coupled with water demand management measures, like improvement of existing water distribution systems, change of irrigation methods, and changes of crop cultivation could alleviate the problem and lead to sustainable and ecological use of waterresources in the study area.

This poster discusses meso-scale hydrological ensemble forecasting for waterresourcesmanagement. Environment Canada will produce a 20 member meso-scale (35 km), short range (48 h) meteorological ensemble prediction system (M-EPS). Each of the 20 members of the global EPS will be dynamically down scaled from 100 to 35 km over North America using limited area model GEM-LAM. Preliminary tests have been conducted on Lie'vre watershed to assess the impact of using short range M-EPS for hydrological forecasting.

Successful management of waterresources requires an integrated approach considering the complex relationships between different biophysical processes, governance frameworks and socio-economic factors. The Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) Deltas project has developed a range of socio-economic scenarios using a participatory approach, and applied these across different biophysical models as well as an integrated environmental, socio-economic model of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) Delta. This work demonstrates a novel approach through the consideration of multiple ecosystem services and related socio-economic factors in the development of scenarios; the application of these to multiple models at multiple scales; and the participatory approach to improve project outcomes and engage national level stakeholders and policy makers. Scenarios can assist in planning for an uncertain future through exploring plausible alternatives. To adequately assess the potential impacts of future changes and management strategies on waterresources, the wider biophysical, socio-economic and governance context needs to be considered. A series of stakeholder workshops have been held in Bangladesh to identify issues of main concern relating to the GBM Delta; to iteratively develop scenario narratives for business as usual, less sustainable, and more sustainable development pathways; and to translate these qualitative scenarios into a quantitative form suitable for analysis. The combined impact of these scenarios and climate change on water quantity and quality within the GBM Basin are demonstrated. Results suggest that climate change is likely to impact on both peak and low flows to a greater extent than most socio-economic changes. However, the diversion of water from the Ganges and Brahmaputra has the potential to significantly impact on water availability in Bangladesh depending on the timing and quantity of diversions. Both climate change and socio

Dec 3, 2004 ... well as determine how to sustain the balance ..... proper water services, i.e. to take the water to the people, is cur- rently a bigger ... Warnings that the balance between the carrying capacity of the land, the availability of water, ...

EDITORIAL PREAMBLE: The first issue of Water Alternatives presents a set of papers that investigates the inherently political nature of waterresourcesmanagement. A Water, Politics and Development initiative was started at ZEF (Center for Development Research, Bonn, Germany) in 2004/2005 in the

Full Text Available Use of water for flushing night soil and enormous sewage disposal are responsible for pollution and depletion of fresh waterresources in India and other countries. The review of traditional methods in the world provides idea of zero-waste discharge residential units. Experiences and research in India, China, Japan, America and Sweden has indicated feasibility of waterless management of night soil, composting and use of biofertilizer product in agriculture. A novel idea of ecological management of night soil and urine is presented in which night soil may be conditioned for transportation and treatment by adding suitable waste product(s from industry and other sources. Different night soil treatment methods are reviewed and emphasized the need for further research on whole cycle of ecological management or sustainable sanitation depending on local conditions. The benefits of this system are zero sewage discharge, reuse of waste as resource, recovery of nutrients in waste as fertilizer, production of fuel gas and reduction of pathogens in biofertilizer. This will help in water conservation and regenerating the quality and quantity of river flow for use as water ways and irrigation and to improve the public health. Potential technical intervention and research needs are discussed in this article

Climate change and population growth are expected to substantially increase the vulnerability of global waterresources throughout the 21st century. Coastal groundwater systems are a nexus of the world's changing oceanic and hydrologic systems and a critical resource for the over one billion people living in coastal areas as well as for terrestrial and offshore ecosystems. Synthesis studies and detailed simulations predict that rising sea levels could negatively impact coastal aquifers by causing saltwater to intrude landward within coastal aquifers or by saltwater inundation of coastal regions. Saltwater intrusion caused by excessive extraction is already impacting entire island nations and globally in diverse regions such as Nile River delta in Egypt, Queensland, Australia and Long Island, USA. However, the vulnerability of coastal aquifers to sea level rise and excessive extraction has not been systematically compared. Here we show that coastal aquifers are much more vulnerable to groundwater extraction than predicted sea level rise in wide-ranging hydrogeologic conditions and population densities. Low lying areas with small hydraulic gradients are more sensitive to climate change but a review of existing coastal aquifer indicates that saltwater intrusion problems are more likely to arise where water demand is high. No cases studies were found linking saltwater intrusion to sea level rise during the past century. Humans are a key driver in the hydrology of coastal aquifers and that adapting to sea level rise at the expense of better watermanagement is misguided.

Effective and efficient waterresourcesmanagement to meet the increasing demands for food, energy, and domestic and industrial water is an imperative for Asian countries. As a basis for analyzing Asian waterresourcemanagement problems, a three-element conceptual framework is presented: (1) waterresourcesmanagement as a system, composed of a set of facilities, operating rules, and incentives applied to waterresources through an institutional arrangement; (2) waterresourcesmanagement as a process involving several stages beginning with planning and continuing with design, construction, operation, and maintenance; and (3) waterresourcesmanagement as a set of linked activities and tasks required to produce the desired outputs. Using this framework to assess performance, it is possible to analyze the linkages among waterresources problems, waterresourcesmanagement, and waterresources organizations and administrative arrangements. Examples are presented of such linkages as applied to problems of erosion and sedimentation, flooding, salinity, water demand-supply imbalances, and water pollution. Brief analytical summaries of eight critical waterresourcesmanagement problems in Asia are presented, along with an illustration of the complexity of waterresources organization and administration, using Thailand as the example. 36 references, 5 figures, 4 tables.

Full Text Available Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM has often been interpreted and implemented in a way that is only really suited to countries with the most developed water infrastructures and management capacities. While sympathetic to many of the criticisms levelled at the IWRM concept and recognising the often disappointing levels of adoption, this paper and the series of papers it introduces identify some alternative ways forward in a developmental context that place more emphasis on the practical in-finding solutions to water scarcity. A range of lighter, more pragmatic and context-adapted approaches, strategies and entry points are illustrated with examples from projects and initiatives in mainly 'developing' countries. The authors argue that a more service-orientated (WASH, irrigation and ecosystem services, locally rooted and balanced approach to IWRM that better matches contexts and capacities should build on such strategies, in addition to the necessary but long-term policy reforms and river basin institution-building at higher levels. Examples in this set of papers not only show that the 'lighter', more opportunistic and incremental approach has potential as well as limitations but also await wider piloting and adoption.

Being one of the essential elements of almost any waterresource system, reservoirs are indispensable in our struggle to harness, utilize and manage natural waterresources. Consequently, the derivation of appropriate reservoir operating strategies draws significant attention in waterresources planning and management. These operational issues become even more important with the ever increasing scale and complexity of waterresource systems.In this respect, the primary obstacle in the analysi...

The majority of people in Limpopo river basin depend on rainfed agriculture. Unfortunately the Limpopo is water scarce, and parts of the basin such as the Mzingwane catchment are under stress in terms of agro-ecological and socio-politico-economic conditions. Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) has been adopted in the river basin in an attempt to improve waterresourcesmanagement. However, it is not known whether, or how, IWRM has improved practices in waterresourcesmanagement and...

Serious water deficits with deteriorating environmental quality are threatening agricultural sustainability in the North China Plain (NCP). This paper addresses spatial and temporal availability of waterresources in the NCP, and identifies the effects of soil management, irrigation and crop genetic...

The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of improved temporal resolution and multi-source satellite data (SAR and optical) on land cover mapping and monitoring for efficient waterresourcesmanagement. For that purpose, we developed an integrated approach based on image classification and on NDVI and SAR backscattering (VV and VH) time series for land cover mapping and crop's irrigation requirements computation. We analysed 28 SPOT-5 Take-5 images with high temporal revisiting time (5 days), 9 Sentinel-1 dual polarization GRD images and in-situ data acquired during the crop growing season. Results show that the combination of images from different sources provides the best information to map agricultural areas. The increase of the images temporal resolution allows the improvement of the estimation of the crop parameters, and then, to calculate of the crop's irrigation requirements. However, this aspect was not fully exploited due to the lack of EO data for the complete growing season.

Full Text Available Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM is considered as a practical approach in solving water-related problems, which are socio-ecologically complex in nature. Bangladesh has also embraced the IWRM approach against its earlier attempt to flood control. In this paper, we evaluate the current status of IWRM in Bangladesh through the lens of policy shifts, institutional transitions and project transformations using seven key dimensions of IWRM. Looking at IWRM from such perspectives is lacking in current literature. A thorough review of policy shifts suggests that all the key dimensions of IWRM are “highly reflected” in the current policy documents. The dimension of “integrated management” is “highly reflected” in both institutional transition and project-level transformation. Most other dimensions are also recognised at both institutional and project levels. However, such reflections gradually weaken as we move from policies to institutions to projects. Despite catchment being considered as a spatial unit of watermanagement at both institutional and project levels, transboundary basin planning is yet to be accomplished. The participation of local people is highly promoted in various recent projects. However, equity and social issues have received less attention at project level, although it has significant potential for supporting some of the key determinants of adaptive capacity. Thus, the IWRM dimensions are in general reflected in recent policies, institutional reforms and project formulation in Bangladesh. However, to solve the complex water-problems, basin scale management through transboundary cooperation and equity and social issues need to be implemented at institutional and project levels.

It is in the context of its application that one needs to determine if climate information is of high quality and ultimately useful. Therefore, it is important that the intersection between data providers and data consumers is structured in form of an iterative and collaborative exchange where science and application viewpoints can be brought together. A traditional "loading dock"-style hand-off of data fails to optimally inform decisions. It is now broadly recognized that a collaborative, open exchange is better suited to generate credible and salient products and knowledge that can be more confidently used in decisions. But in order for this exchange to be successful in practice, it needs to be sufficiently efficient to actually facilitate an exploratory process that is inherently iterative to determine the most informative products. It also requires a transparent approach that is easily understood and communicated. We will present prototypes of Climate Information Dashboards that collect on a single page to integrate a suite of key climate information for resourcemanagers. The content of dashboards is based on standardized products that can be assembled to meet specific needs. They were co-designed with the waterresourcemanagers and are tailored to selected management and decision topics. The visualizations are tuned to quickly provide the basic information, yet below individual diagnostics are more detailed analyses that can be consulted. These dashboards offer a flexible way to connect decision-makers to climate model output. Conversely, such dashboards can also be applied to inform model development by providing insight into a suite of key characteristics of model performance that have been identified as critical by a sector.

According to that there are large amount of data, complexity of data type and format in the waterresourcesmanagement, we built the waterresources calculation model and established the waterresourcesmanagement information system based on the advanced ArcGIS and Visual Studio.NET development platform. The system can integrate the spatial data and attribute data organically, and manage them uniformly. It can analyze spatial data, inquire by map and data bidirectionally, provide various charts and report forms automatically, link multimedia information, manage database etc. . So it can provide spatial and static synthetical information services for study, management and decision of waterresources, regional geology and eco-environment etc..

The study reviews the challenges waterresourcesmanagement faces, and the opportunities for policy formulation towards sustainable development in Argentina, where regardless of prudent public finances management, waterresourcesmanagement remain disproportionately backward compared to regional, and international best practices. Hence, within a frame of reference on the country's populati...

The study reviews the challenges waterresourcesmanagement faces, and the opportunities for policy formulation towards sustainable development in Argentina, where regardless of prudent public finances management, waterresourcesmanagement remain disproportionately backward compared to regional, and international best practices. Hence, within a frame of reference on the country's populati...

Being one of the essential elements of almost any waterresource system, reservoirs are indispensable in our struggle to harness, utilize and manage natural waterresources. Consequently, the derivation of appropriate reservoir operating strategies draws significant attention in waterresources plan

The WaterResources Research Needs Assessment team received funding in summer 2006 from the Inland Northwest Research Alliance (INRA) WaterResources Steering Committee to conduct a structured needs assessment study. The study was motivated by the desire to allow future INRA research and educational programs to meet better the needs of waterresourcesmanagers in the five state INRA region.

Global climate and environmental changes are endangering global waterresources; and several approaches have been tested to manage and reduce the pressure on these decreasing resources. This study uses the case study of Xi’an City in China to test reasonable and effective methods to address waterresource shortages. The study generated a framework combining ecosystem services and waterresourcemanagement. Seven ecosystem indicators were classified as supply services, regulating services, or cultural services. Index values for each indicator were calculated, and based on questionnaire results, each index’s weight was calculated. Using the Likert method, we calculated ecosystem service supplies in every region of the city. We found that the ecosystem’s service capability is closely related to waterresources, providing a method for managingwaterresources. Using Xi’an City as an example, we apply the ecosystem services concept to waterresourcesmanagement, providing a method for decision makers. PMID:27886137

Global climate and environmental changes are endangering global waterresources; and several approaches have been tested to manage and reduce the pressure on these decreasing resources. This study uses the case study of Xi'an City in China to test reasonable and effective methods to address waterresource shortages. The study generated a framework combining ecosystem services and waterresourcemanagement. Seven ecosystem indicators were classified as supply services, regulating services, or cultural services. Index values for each indicator were calculated, and based on questionnaire results, each index's weight was calculated. Using the Likert method, we calculated ecosystem service supplies in every region of the city. We found that the ecosystem's service capability is closely related to waterresources, providing a method for managingwaterresources. Using Xi'an City as an example, we apply the ecosystem services concept to waterresourcesmanagement, providing a method for decision makers.

Suggestions on Carrying Out Strict Management Regulations of WaterResources were promulgated by the State Council in January, 2012. This is an important issue which has drawn public attention. I strongly support the principle and spirit of the regulations, as well as the request that governments above the county level bear the overall management responsibility. However, as to the technical route of and countermeasures for achieving strict management, several problems exist in reality. Relevant opinions and suggestions are given in this paper (the paper focuses exclusively on drinking water sources which are most in need of strict protection and management). Main opinions are as follows. (1) The sources of drinking water meeting the Class II standard in Surface Water Environment Quality Standards (GB 3838-2002) may not necessarily be unpolluted; (2) A necessary condition for protecting drinking water sources is that the effluents of enterprises' workshops discharged into the conservation zone should meet the regulation on the permitted maximum concentration of priority-I pollutants defined in the Integrated Wastewater Discharge Standard (GB 8978-1996); (3) There is a strong doubt about whether Class II standard in GB 3838-2002 for priority I pollutants reflects environmental background values in water.

Awareness of waterresourcesmanagement is expression behavior as receive, response, valuing, and organization. Waterresources is an important for everyone in the world and the recently waterresources are be risky as lack of water, waste water, and blooding. The development on awareness of waterresourcesmanagement for grade 6 students is very…

When considering watermanagement, formal institutions tend to overshadow the local informal ones although the latter guide day-to-day interactions on water use. Conversely, Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) has demonstrated a bias toward the formal state-based institutions for watermanagement. A study was carried out to examine how local water rights and local informal institutional arrangements influence watermanagement in the Great Ruaha River catchment in the Rufiji basin in Tanzania. Participatory appraisals were carried out, supplemented by focus group discussions, interviews, and a stakeholders’ workshop. It was found that local water rights, local water rotations and local water user groups are widely in use and are more influential than the formal water rights, water fees and water user associations (WUAs). Water allocation at the driest period depends on local informal relations among irrigators. More than 70% of water users surveyed choose to settle disputes over water via informal channels and the latter are more effective in resolving water conflicts and reconciling the antagonists compared to the formal routes. It was also found that although much emphasis and many resources have been expended in transforming local water rights and water related organisations to formal registered ones, the former have remained popular and water users feel more affiliated to local arrangements. The paper concludes that local informal watermanagement can offer the best lessons for the formal management arrangements and should not be simply overlooked. Finally, the paper recommends that the formal and informal institutions should be amalgamated to bring forth a real Integrated WaterResourceManagement framework.

The author has identified the following significant results. Twenty Data Collection Platforms (DCP) are being field installed on USGS waterresources stations in the Delaware River Basin. DCP's have been successfully installed and are operating well on five stream gaging stations, three observation wells, and one water quality monitor in the basin. DCP's have been installed at nine additional water quality monitors, and work is progressing on interfacing the platforms to the monitors. ERTS-related waterresources data from the platforms are being provided in near real time, by the Goddard Space Flight Center to the Pennsylvania district, WaterResources Division, U.S. Geological Survey. On a daily basis, the data are computer processed by the Survey and provided to the Delaware River Basin Commission. Each daily summary contains data that were relayed during 4 or 5 of the 15 orbits made by ERTS-1 during the previous day. Waterresources parameters relays by the platforms include dissolved oxygen concentrations, temperature, pH, specific conductance, well level, and stream gage height, which is used to compute stream flow for the daily summary.

Integrated WaterResourceManagement (IWRM) is gaining increased acceptance among water policy makers and researchers as a way to create more effective governance institutions, leading towards integrated water development solutions for poverty alleviation, while addressing social, economic and environmental aspects of water challenges. However, global environmental change poses fundamental challenges to water policy makers as it implies vast scientific, and hence, policy uncertainty; its implications for international water governance initiatives remain unspecified, effectively hindering dialogue on how current IWRM initiatives should be modified. This paper addresses the lag between our growing understanding of resilient interconnected freshwater resources (and their governance) and the reforms being promoted by policy makers. In particular, there is a need to rethink some of IWRM's key components to better tackle the challenges posed by the complex behaviour of interconnected social-ecological systems and global environmental change.

Research on the combination of hydrological variation and ecological demands plays an important role In water availability assessment and sustainable management on basin scale.An integrative frame, consisting of hydrological regime modelling, ecological water demands estimation and renewable re-sourcesmanagement, is given in this paper in order to support the implementation of the sustainable waterresourcesmanagement.The suggested integrative frame has been used to study the integrated waterresourcesmanagement in southern Hanjiang River Basin which is the water source of South-to-North Water Transportation Project in China.SWAT (soil and water assessment tool) model was used to simulate the monthly averaging streamflow and the amounts of ecological water demands in stream were also estimated in order to evaluate the available waterresources for the local users and the transportation project.Then we formed the developing scenarioes by coupling the available waterre-sources, the recovering rate of waterresources in natural water cycle, the local water use rate and the amounts of the water transported to North, and used the Scheafer model to analyze their evolving tra-jectories.Eventually, the sustainable waterresourcesmanagement measures were assembled by the comprehensive evaluation of the scenarioea.The research indicates that the integrative frame provided a new way for the integrated waterresourcesmanagement in river basin.

SummaryIn calibrating a model, a set of parameters is assigned to the model which will be employed for the making of all future predictions. If these parameters are estimated through solution of an inverse problem, formulated to be properly posed through either pre-calibration or mathematical regularisation, then solution of this inverse problem will, of necessity, lead to a simplified parameter set that omits the details of reality, while still fitting historical data acceptably well. Furthermore, estimates of parameters so obtained will be contaminated by measurement noise. Both of these phenomena will lead to errors in predictions made by the model, with the potential for error increasing with the hydraulic property detail on which the prediction depends. Integrity of model usage demands that model predictions be accompanied by some estimate of the possible errors associated with them. The present paper applies theory developed in a previous work to the analysis of predictive error associated with a real world, waterresourcemanagement model. The analysis offers many challenges, including the fact that the model is a complex one that was partly calibrated by hand. Nevertheless, it is typical of models which are commonly employed as the basis for the making of important decisions, and for which such an analysis must be made. The potential errors associated with point-based and averaged water level and creek inflow predictions are examined, together with the dependence of these errors on the amount of averaging involved. Error variances associated with predictions made by the existing model are compared with "optimized error variances" that could have been obtained had calibration been undertaken in such a way as to minimize predictive error variance. The contributions by different parameter types to the overall error variance of selected predictions are also examined.

... Management Plan, Yakima River Basin, Water Enhancement Project, Benton, Kittitas, Klickitat, and Yakima... analyzed the elements of the Integrated WaterResourceManagement Plan in the FPEIS. The FPEIS addresses... management plan includes three major components (Habitat, Systems Modification, and Water Supply) which...

Water planning and the Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) represent the best way to help decision makers to identify and choose the most adequate alternatives among other possible ones. The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water (SEEA-W) is displayed as a tool for the building of water balances in a river basin, providing a standard approach to achieve comparability of the results between different territories. The target of this paper is to present the building up of a tool that enables the combined use of hydrological models and waterresources models to fill in the SEEA-W tables. At every step of the modelling chain, we are capable to build the asset accounts and the physical water supply and use tables according to SEEA-W approach along with an estimation of the water services costs. The case study is the Jucar River Basin District (RBD), located in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula in Spain which as in other many Mediterranean basins is currently water-stressed. To guide this work we have used PATRICAL model in combination with AQUATOOL Decision Support System (DSS). The results indicate that for the average year the total use of water in the district amounts to 15,143hm(3)/year, being the Total Water Renewable WaterResources 3909hm(3)/year. On the other hand, the water service costs in Jucar RBD amounts to 1634 million € per year at constant 2012 prices. It is noteworthy that 9% of these costs correspond to non-conventional resources, such as desalinated water, reused water and water transferred from other regions.

The possibility of applying imagery from high altitude aircraft and satellites sensors to watermanagement in California was evaluated. Results from seven applications studies comparing the costs of using high altitude imagery for various purposes to the costs of using conventional data sources, reveal the high altitude imagery to be more cost effective in six cases and equal to conventional data sources in one case. These results also reveal that the imagery provides a level of quality not generally achievable with uncorrected conventional imagery. Although satellite application studies are not yet complete, preliminary results indicate that some definite possibilities exist for employing satellite imagery on an operational basis within the next few years.

Climate change is expected to have a large impact on waterresources worldwide. A major problem in assessing the potential impact of a changing climate on these resources is the difference in spatial scale between available climate change projections and waterresourcesmanagement. Regional climate

Climate change is expected to have a large impact on waterresources worldwide. A major problem in assessing the potential impact of a changing climate on these resources is the difference in spatial scale between available climate change projections and waterresourcesmanagement. Regional climate

Waterresources have become an increasingly important topic of discussion in natural resources and environmental management courses. To address the need for more critical thinking in the classroom and to provide an active learning experience for undergraduate students, we present a case study based on water competition and management in the…

A combination of regulations and management measures with respect to use/emissions of EPs into the environment, as well as to their occurrence in the environment are fundamental to reach an efficient waterresourcemanagement.

This Final Scientific/ Technical Report submitted with respect to Project DE-FE0000833 titled 'An Integrated Water Treatment Technology Solution for Sustainable WaterResourceManagement in the Marcellus Shale' in support of final reporting requirements. This final report contains a compilation of previous reports with the most current data in order to produce one final complete document. The goal of this research was to provide an integrated approach aimed at addressing the increasing waterresource challenges between natural gas production and other water stakeholders in shale gas basins. The objective was to demonstrate that the AltelaRain{reg_sign} technology could be successfully deployed in the Marcellus Shale Basin to treat frac flow-back water. That objective has been successfully met.

INTRODUCTION Water budgets provide a means for evaluating availability and sustainability of a water supply. A water budget simply states that the rate of change in water stored in an area, such as a watershed, is balanced by the rate at which water flows into and out of the area. An understanding of water budgets and underlying hydrologic processes provides a foundation for effective water-resource and environmental planning and management. Observed changes in water budgets of an area over time can be used to assess the effects of climate variability and human activities on waterresources. Comparison of water budgets from different areas allows the effects of factors such as geology, soils, vegetation, and land use on the hydrologic cycle to be quantified. Human activities affect the natural hydrologic cycle in many ways. Modifications of the land to accommodate agriculture, such as installation of drainage and irrigation systems, alter infiltration, runoff, evaporation, and plant transpiration rates. Buildings, roads, and parking lots in urban areas tend to increase runoff and decrease infiltration. Dams reduce flooding in many areas. Water budgets provide a basis for assessing how a natural or human-induced change in one part of the hydrologic cycle may affect other aspects of the cycle. This report provides an overview and qualitative description of water budgets as foundations for effective water-resources and environmental management of freshwater hydrologic systems. Perhaps of most interest to the hydrologic community, the concepts presented are also relevant to the fields of agriculture, atmospheric studies, meteorology, climatology, ecology, limnology, mining, water supply, flood control, reservoir management, wetland studies, pollution control, and other areas of science, society, and industry. The first part of the report describes water storage and movement in the atmosphere, on land surface, and in the subsurface, as well as water exchange among these

A seasonal hydrologic ensemble prediction system, developed for the Ohio River basin, has been improved and expanded to several other regions including the Eastern U.S., Africa and East Asia. The prediction system adopts the traditional Extended Streamflow Prediction (ESP) approach, utilizing the VIC (Variable Infiltration Capacity) hydrological model as the central tool for producing ensemble prediction of soil moisture, snow and streamflow with lead times up to 6-month. VIC is forced by observed meteorology to estimate the hydrological initial condition prior to the forecast, but during the forecast period the atmospheric forcing comes from statistically downscaled, seasonal forecast from dynamic climate models. The seasonal hydrologic ensemble prediction system is currently producing realtime seasonal hydrologic forecast for these regions on a monthly basis. Using hindcasts from a 19-year period (1981-1999), during which seasonal hindcasts from NCEP Climate Forecast System (CFS) and European Union DEMETER project are available, we evaluate the performance of the forecast system over our forecast regions. The evaluation shows that the prediction system using the current forecast approach is able to produce reliable and accurate precipitation, soil moisture and streamflow predictions. The overall skill is much higher then the traditional ESP. In particular, forecasts based on multiple climate model forecast are more skillful than single model-based forecast. This emphasizes the significant need for producing seasonal climate forecast with multiple climate models for hydrologic applications. Forecast from this system is expected to provide very valuable information about future hydrologic states and associated risks for end users, including waterresourcemanagement and financial sectors.

The IPCC and US National Academies of Science have recommended iterative risk management as the best approach for watermanagement and many other types of climate-related decisions. Such an approach does not rely on a single set of judgments at any one time but rather actively updates and refines strategies as new information emerges. In addition, the approach emphasizes that a portfolio of different types of responses, rather than any single action, often provides the best means to manage uncertainty. Implementing an iterative risk management approach can however prove difficult in actual decision support applications. This talk will suggest that robust decision making (RDM) provides a particularly useful set of quantitative methods for implementing iterative risk management. This RDM approach is currently being used in a wide variety of watermanagement applications. RDM employs three key concepts that differentiate it from most types of probabilistic risk analysis: 1) characterizing uncertainty with multiple views of the future (which can include sets of probability distributions) rather than a single probabilistic best-estimate, 2) employing a robustness rather than an optimality criterion to assess alternative policies, and 3) organizing the analysis with a vulnerability and response option framework, rather than a predict-then-act framework. This talk will summarize the RDM approach, describe its use in several different types of watermanagement applications, and compare the results to those obtained with other methods.

This dissertation discusses how the importance of river flow-sustained ecosystems for local communities can be quantified for the purpose of balancing water supply and demand in Integrated WaterResourcesManagement. Due to the development of waterresources, for example through the construction of

Biotic homogenization, a de facto symptom of a global biodiversity crisis, underscores the urgency of reforming waterresourcesmanagement to focus on the health and viability of ecosystems. Global population and economic growth, coupled with inadequate investment in maintenance of ecological systems, threaten to degrade environmental integrity and ecosystem services that support the global socioeconomic system, indicative of a system governed by the Growth and Underinvestment (G&U) archetype. Waterresourcesmanagement is linked to biotic homogenization and degradation of system integrity through alteration of water systems, ecosystem dynamics, and composition of the biota. Consistent with the G&U archetype, waterresources planning primarily treats ecological considerations as exogenous constraints rather than integral, dynamic, and responsive parts of the system. It is essential that the ecological considerations be made objectives of waterresources development plans to facilitate the analysis of feedbacks and potential trade-offs between socioeconomic gains and ecological losses. We call for expediting a shift to ecosystem-based management of waterresources, which requires a better understanding of the dynamics and links between waterresourcesmanagement actions, ecological side-effects, and associated long-term ramifications for sustainability. To address existing knowledge gaps, models that include dynamics and estimated thresholds for regime shifts or ecosystem degradation need to be developed. Policy levers for implementation of ecosystem-based waterresourcesmanagement include shifting away from growth-oriented supply management, better demand management, increased public awareness, and institutional reform that promotes adaptive and transdisciplinary management approaches.

The emerging water crisis in China shows that the current institutional frameworks and policies with regard to waterresourcesmanagement are incapable of achieving an effective and satisfactory situation that includes Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM). This paper analyses this framework and related policies, examines their deficiencies in relation to all water stress problems and explores alternatives focusing on river basins. Waterresourcesmanagement reforms in modern China are reviewed and the main problems involved in transforming the current river management system into an IRBM-based system are analysed. The Huai River basin is used as an example of current river basin management, with quantitative data serving to show the scale and scope of the problems in the country as a whole. The institutional reforms required are discussed and a conceptual institutional framework is proposed to facilitate the implementation of IRBM in China. In particular, the roles, power and responsibilities of River Basin Commissions (RBCs) should be legally strengthened; the functions of supervising, decision-making and execution should be separated; and cross-sectoral legislation, institutional coordination and public participation at all levels should be promoted.

The urban environment has to be concerned with the integrated waterresourcesmanagement, which necessarily includes the concept of basin unity and governance. The traditional urban water cycle framework, which includes water supply, sewerage and wastewater treatment services, is being replaced by a holistic and systemic concept, where water is associated with urbanism and sustainability policies. This global point of view cannot be ignored as new regulations demand systemic and environmenta...

This paper presents an overview of waterresourcemanagement in Brazil, in particular the state of Rio de Janeiro, and in the European Union, with an emphasis on member country Portugal. The study examines the primary laws, governing bodies and waterresource plans. The paper describes the concerns and interests of the scientific community and other sectors of society with regard to waterresourcemanagement. The paper also draws attention to challenges and opportunities concerning the main objective of waterresourcemanagement, which is to ensure the availability of water of high quality and sustainable quantity. Additionally, it also mentions good and poor management practices. Among the concerns highlighted are integrated waterresourcemanagement and waterresource monitoring. The objective of this study was to contribute to waterresourcemanagement processes. The primary reasons for this study are the growing scarcity of freshwater in the world, recurrent problems in managing this resource and a desire to contribute to the improvement of the current situation. The study of watermanagement in different contexts allows for a greater understanding of the subject, thereby assisting the decision-making of managers and society in general with regard to environmental quality and ecological and human health. There is an increasing interest in efficient waterresourcemanagement, which creates a demand for information on the subject. Both Brazil and the European Union are facing problems related to quantity and quality of water. Problems like scarcity of freshwater, contamination, salinization, and floods. This makes the realities of them quite close, despite the physical distance between them. In general, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, the European Union and Portugal have similar waterresourcemanagement requirements. If these regions are to supply a consistent quantity of high-quality water to present and future generations, then they need effective laws and plans

Investigation on Reservoir Operation of Agricultural WaterResourcesManagement for Drought Mitigation Chung-Lien Cheng, Wen-Ping Tsai, Fi-John Chang* Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering, National Taiwan University, Da-An District, Taipei 10617, Taiwan, ROC.Corresponding author: Fi-John Chang (changfj@ntu.edu.tw) AbstractIn Taiwan, the population growth and economic development has led to considerable and increasing demands for natural waterresources in the last decades. Under such condition, water shortage problems have frequently occurred in northern Taiwan in recent years such that water is usually transferred from irrigation sectors to public sectors during drought periods. Facing the uneven spatial and temporal distribution of waterresources and the problems of increasing water shortages, it is a primary and critical issue to simultaneously satisfy multiple water uses through adequate reservoir operations for sustainable waterresourcesmanagement. Therefore, we intend to build an intelligent reservoir operation system for the assessment of agricultural waterresourcesmanagement strategy in response to food security during drought periods. This study first uses the grey system to forecast the agricultural water demand during February and April for assessing future agricultural water demands. In the second part, we build an intelligent waterresources system by using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II), an optimization tool, for searching the water allocation series based on different water demand scenarios created from the first part to optimize the water supply operation for different water sectors. The results can be a reference guide for adequate agricultural waterresourcesmanagement during drought periods. Keywords: Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II); Grey System; Optimization; Agricultural WaterResourcesManagement.

Water provides the origin of human survival and prosperity,and the basic resource for the maintenance of terrestrial eco-systems,their biodiversity,productivity and ecological services.With China’s recent,rapid growth both in population and economic development,the water shortage has become one of the most constraints on its ecological restoration and socio-economic development,especially in the arid inland regions of northwest China.At first glance,this water shortage in China appears to be a resource crisis.But second,an in-depth analysis reveals that the water shortage crisis arises mainly resulting from the poor watermanagement system and operating mechanism that cannot facilitate fair allocation and efficient utilization of waterresources both regionally and nationally and thus is viewed as a crisis of watermanage-ment.The solution of China’s water shortage and low-efficient utilization problem will,in particular,require a fundamen-tal and substantial reform or innovation of the existing watermanagement system and operating mechanism.In this paper,we address explicitly the problems existed in the current watermanagement system,explore the basic theory of waterre-sourcesmanagement and provide some insights into the way how to establish a river basin based integrated waterre-sourcesmanagement system in China.

The necessity and feasibility of an ET-based modern waterresourcesmanagement was analyzed to improve assessment of critical waterresources scarcity in the region/basin. This analysis was based on the whole water cycle process and its analysis object is evapotranspiration (ET), a main consumption component in the waterresources dynamic transformation process. A case study was undertaken by selecting soil waterresources in the Yellow River Basin and employing the WEP-L distributed hydrological model with physics mechanisms. This paper discusses the amount and consumption efficiency of soil-waterresources according to completely simulated results of water cycle elements throughout the basin. Results indicate that it is important for the ET-based modern waterresourcesmanagement strategy to alleviate waterresources scarcity because it may not only avoid unused water wasting but also improve water use efficiency. Therefore, an ET-based modern waterresourcesmanagement scheme is a good complement to the traditional waterresources demand management system.

The objective of this project was to enhance the waterresource decision-making process with respect to oil and gas exploration/production activities on Alaska’s North Slope. To this end, a web-based software tool was developed to allow stakeholders to assemble, evaluate, and communicate relevant information between and amongst themselves. The software, termed North Slope Decision Support System (NSDSS), is a visually-referenced database that provides a platform for running complex natural system, planning, and optimization models. The NSDSS design was based upon community input garnered during a series of stakeholder workshops, and the end product software is freely available to all stakeholders via the project website. The tool now resides on servers hosted by the UAF Water and Environmental Research Center, and will remain accessible and free-of-charge for all interested stakeholders. The development of the tool fostered new advances in the area of data evaluation and decision support technologies, and the finished product is envisioned to enhance waterresource planning activities on Alaska’s North Slope.

Under the impacts of climate change, waterresourcemanagement faces a serious challenge. Due to extremely events, the water supply system is hard to maintain stable water supply. In order to decrease the pressure of centralized water supply system, the water demand management should be strengthened. The storm watermanagement model (SWMM) is widely used to simulate surface runoff, and it has been improved to have the ability of continuous simulation. In this study, storm watermanagement model (SWMM) is applied to simulate surface runoff and integrated into the framework of waterresourcemanagement for a rural community scale. In a rural community, the surface runoff may be collected and treated by wetlands for later uses. The reclaimed water from wetlands may become a new waterresource for non-contact domestic water uses, or be reused to meet irrigating water demand. Thus, the water demand from the centralized system can be reduced, and the water supply system may have lower risk under the climate change. On the other hand, SWMM can simulate the measures of low impact development (LID), such as bio-retention cell, green roof, rain barrel etc. The decentralized measures, LID, may not only reduce the runoff and delay the peak flow, and but also provide the service of water supply. In this study, LID is applied to waterresourcemanagement of a rural community, and combined with the centralized water supply system. The results show the application of SWMM to waterresourcesmanagement in a community scale study. Besides, the effectiveness of LID on water supply is also evaluated.

Full Text Available Population and industry growth in dry climates are fully tied to significant increase in water and energy demands. Because water affects many economic, social and environmental aspects, an interdisciplinary approach is needed to solve current and future water scarcity problems, and to minimize energy requirements in water production. Such a task requires integrated water modeling tools able to couple surface water and groundwater, which allow for managing complex basins where multiple stakeholders and water users face an intense competition for limited freshwater resources. This work develops an integrated waterresourcemanagement model to investigate the water-energy nexus in reducing water stress in the Copiapó River basin, an arid, highly vulnerable basin in northern Chile. The model was utilized to characterize groundwater and surface waterresources, and water demand and uses. Different management scenarios were evaluated to estimate future resource availability, and compared in terms of energy requirements and costs for desalinating seawater to eliminate the corresponding water deficit. Results show a basin facing a very complex future unless measures are adopted. When a 30% uniform reduction of water consumption is achieved, 70 GWh over the next 30 years are required to provide the energy needed to increase the available water through seawater desalination. In arid basins, this energy could be supplied by solar energy, thus addressing water shortage problems through integrated waterresourcemanagement combined with new technologies of water production driven by renewable energy sources.

Integrated waterresourcesmanagement is one of the major bottom-up alternatives that emerged during the 1980s in North America as part of the trend towards more holistic and participatory styles of environmental governance. It aims to protect surface and groundwater resources by focusing on the integrated and collaborative management of land and…

Effective integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM) and developments impacting on waterresources are recognized as key components of environmentally sustainable development. Istanbul (Turkey) is a very large metropolitan city with a population of approximately 14 million. Istanbul is one of the

This work presents questions related to the viability and the requirements for the implementation of a National Policy of WaterResources in Brazil, and identifies the means to bring about active participation by the population in the management of waterresources. While social inequalities may be an impediment to the implementation of full…

Effective integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM) and developments impacting on waterresources are recognized as key components of environmentally sustainable development. Istanbul (Turkey) is a very large metropolitan city with a population of approximately 14 million. Istanbul is one of the

and upcoming generations of satellites, including the Sentinel missions. Dedicated application case studies have been developed and demonstrated covering all EO products required by and developed with the participating African water authorities for their waterresourcemanagement tasks, such as water reservoir......As part of the TIGER initiative [1] the TIGER-NET project aims to support the assessment and monitoring of waterresources from watershed to transboundary basin level delivering indispensable information for Integrated WaterResourceManagement in Africa through: 1. Development of an open......-source Water Observation and Information Systems (WOIS) for monitoring, assessing and inventorying waterresources in a cost-effective manner; 2. Capacity building and training of African water authorities and technical centers to fully exploit the increasing observation capacity offered by current...

Full Text Available The first issue of Water Alternatives presents a set of papers that investigates the inherently political nature of waterresourcesmanagement. A Water, Politics and Development initiative was started at ZEF (Center for Development Research, Bonn, Germany in 2004/2005 in the context of a national-level discussion on the role of social science in global (environmental change research. In April 2005 a roundtable workshop with this title was held at ZEF, sponsored by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/German Research Foundation and supported by the NKGCF (Nationales Komitee für Global Change Forschung/German National Committee on Global Change Research, aiming to design a research programme in the German context. In 2006 it was decided to design a publication project on a broader, European and international basis. The Irrigation and Water Engineering Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands joined as a co-organiser and co-sponsor. The collection of papers published in this issue of Water Alternatives is one of the products of the publication project. As part of the initiative a session on Water, Politics and Development was organised at the Stockholm World Water Week in August 2007, where most of the papers in this collection were presented and discussed. Through this publication, the Water, Politics and Development initiative links up with other initiatives simultaneously ongoing, for instance the 'Water governance – challenging the consensus' project of the Bradford Centre for International Development at Bradford University, UK. At this point in time, the initiative has formulated its thrust as 'framing a political sociology of waterresourcesmanagement'. This, no doubt, is an ambitious project, methodologically, theoretically as well as practically. Through the compilation of this collection we have started to explore whether and how such an endeavour might make sense. The participants in the initiative think it does, are quite

Full Text Available A two sides balance can be drawn from the last 20 years of active intents to change local, regional and global policies concerning water and global environment issues. On one hand, as a consequence of the “sustainable development” model, there is an increasing awareness of the issues in stake, and environment became a core part of any public policy. International conferences and the investment in scientific research in these areas are an expression of this. Yet, concerns are growing in face of the increasing stress imposed on freshwater resources, climate change and the difficulties to achieve international consensus on specific strategies. This was the focus of discussion in the international conference on climate change organised in Nagoya in December 2010, by ICSS, ICSU and ICPHS. A revision of the conceptual approach to sustainable development, moving beyond a strictly socio-economic understanding of human behaviour and incorporating, as basic strategies, the dimensions of culture, didactics of dilemma and governance, is currently being applied in some scenarios, hopefully with a better result. The paper discusses waterresources in the context of climate change from this integrated perspective.

The bibliography contains citations concerning planning and management of waterresource programs and projects at the local, regional, state, and national levels. The studies of water quality, drinking water, industrial water, and irrigation are presented. Topics include groundwater and surface watermanagement, flood control, waste water treatment, hydroelectric power generation, sanitation and toxic hazards, models and risk assessment, and remote sensing technology. Worldwide watermanagement is covered.(Contains 50-250 citations and includes a subject term index and title list.) (Copyright NERAC, Inc. 1995)

Drought is a complex phenomenon, occurring in most climatic zones, including both high and low rainfall regions. Recent drought events (2004-2006 & 2010-2012) in the UK have highlighted a continued vulnerability to this hazard. The period 2010-2012 was characterised by departures from typical seasonal climatic conditions, resulting in a severe drought, which had a significant impact on waterresources in parts of the UK. Recent droughts highlight the need for better understanding of extreme drought events, particularly from a waterresource perspective. The UK has a wealth of long climate series that are under used for waterresourcemanagement planning. Standardised drought indicators offer a potential monitoring and management tool for operational waterresourcemanagement. However, the application of these metrics for operational waterresourcemanagement needs further investigation, particularly links between meteorological drought indices, streamflow, groundwater and water supply systems. This work uses standardised drought indices to investigate the propagation from meteorological drought to hydrological drought using observed data from rivers, aquifers and reservoirs 2013 within a 21,000km2 water supply region serving 7.4 million people. In order to develop a better understanding of the links between drought indices and observed drought impacts. Exploring how meteorological drought indicators link to the water supply region helps build an understanding of their utility for waterresourcemanagement.

Full Text Available Irrigation watermanagement is crucial for agricultural production and livelihood security in many regions and countries throughout the world. In this study, a two-stage stochastic fractional programming (TSFP method is developed for planning an agricultural waterresourcesmanagement system under uncertainty. TSFP can provide an effective linkage between conflicting economic benefits and the associated penalties; it can also balance conflicting objectives and maximize the system marginal benefit with per unit of input under uncertainty. The developed TSFP method is applied to a real case of agricultural waterresourcesmanagement of the Zhangweinan River Basin China, which is one of the main food and cotton producing regions in north China and faces serious water shortage. The results demonstrate that the TSFP model is advantageous in balancing conflicting objectives and reflecting complicated relationships among multiple system factors. Results also indicate that, under the optimized irrigation target, the optimized water allocation rate of Minyou Channel and Zhangnan Channel are 57.3% and 42.7%, respectively, which adapts the changes in the actual agricultural waterresourcesmanagement problem. Compared with the inexact two-stage watermanagement (ITSP method, TSFP could more effectively address the sustainable watermanagement problem, provide more information regarding tradeoffs between multiple input factors and system benefits, and help the watermanagers maintain sustainable waterresources development of the Zhangweinan River Basin.

US Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior — This WaterResource Inventory and Assessment report for Kern National Wildlife Refuge and Tulare Basin Wildlife Management Area describes hydrologic information,...

Climate change, rapid economic development and increase of the human population are considered as the major triggers of increasing challenges for waterresourcesmanagement. This proposed integrated optimal allocation model (IOAM) for complex adaptive system of waterresourcesmanagement is applied in Dongjiang River basin located in the Guangdong Province of China. The IOAM is calibrated and validated under baseline period 2010 year and future period 2011-2030 year, respectively. The simulation results indicate that the proposed model can make a trade-off between demand and supply for sustainable development of society, economy, ecology and environment and achieve adaptive management of waterresources allocation. The optimal scheme derived by multi-objective evaluation is recommended for decision-makers in order to maximize the comprehensive benefits of waterresourcesmanagement.

Urban watermanagement requires innovative and integrative approaches to improve sustainability in cities keeping in touch with science progress. Integrated ResourceManagement (IRM) is one of these strategies and has been developed to integrate various natural and human resources. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is challenging to move from vision to implementation. The aim of this paper is to identify strengths and weaknesses of IRM and analyze if the approach might facilitate implementation of sustainability objectives in the watermanagement field. A literature review was performed on peer-reviewed papers that were identified through Google Scholar search for the term 'Integrated ResourceManagement'. It was found that IRM has been used in a number of contexts such as urban planning, forestry, and management of waste and livestock. Significant implementation challenges are highlighted in the literature. Based on the lessons learned in many different fields, from forestry to communication sciences, important characteristics of IRM approach were found such as the need for adequate governance and strong leaderships, stakeholder's involvement, the learning process and the critical need of appropriate evaluation criteria. We conclude developing an implementation methodology and presenting several recommendations to implement IRM in urban management. While Integrated WaterResourceManagement (IWRM) is recognized as a fruitful approach to achieve sustainable watermanagement, this study suggests that a shift toward Integrated ResourceManagement (IRM) can be beneficial as it is designed to facilitate consideration of the interrelationships between various natural and human resources.

Full Text Available Mountains are essential sources of freshwater for our world, but their role in global waterresources could well be significantly altered by climate change. How well do we understand these potential changes today, and what are implications for waterresourcesmanagement, climate change adaptation, and evolving water policy? To answer above questions, we have examined 11 case study regions with the goal of providing a global overview, identifying research gaps and formulating recommendations for research, management and policy.

After setting the scene regarding water stress, watermanagement capacity and scientific capacity in our case study regions, we examine the state of knowledge in waterresources from a highland-lowland viewpoint, focusing on mountain areas on the one hand and the adjacent lowland areas on the other hand. Based on this review, research priorities are identified, including precipitation, snow water equivalent, soil parameters, evapotranspiration and sublimation, groundwater as well as enhanced warming and feedback mechanisms. In addition, the importance of environmental monitoring at high altitudes is highlighted. We then make recommendations how advancements in the management of mountain waterresources under climate change could be achieved in the fields of research, waterresourcesmanagement and policy as well as through better interaction between these fields.

We conclude that effective management of mountain waterresources urgently requires more detailed regional studies and more reliable scenario projections, and that research on mountain waterresources must become more integrative by linking relevant disciplines. In addition, the knowledge exchange between managers and researchers must be improved and oriented towards long-term continuous interaction.

Full Text Available of transdisciplinarity and complexity (Palmer, 2011). Dent’s CMA Leadership Newsletters cover a wide range of ‘learning-by-doing’ or SAM advice to waterresourcemanagement institution leaders. Challenges/constraints A number of challenges with regard to the nature... down to specific individuals and groups) (Dent, 2008a). Grappling with complexity is a challenging task and thus demands innovative leadership that can balance the need for creativity and control (Dent, 2004c) within waterresourcemanagement...

Models have long been used in waterresourcesmanagement to guide decision making and improve understanding of the system. Numerous models of different scales -spatial and temporal - are available. Yet, very few models manage to bridge simulations of hydrological and water quality parameters from both upland watershed and riverine system. Most water quality models, such as QUAL2E and EPD-RIV1 concentrate on the riverine system while CE-QUAL-W2 and WASP models focus on larger waterbodies, such as lakes and reservoirs. On the other hand, the original SWAT model, HSPF and other upland watershed hydrological models simulate agricultural (diffuse) pollution sources with limited number of processes incorporated to handle point source pollutions that emanate from industrial sectors. Such limitations, which are common in most hydrodynamic and water quality models undermine better understanding that otherwise could be uncovered by employing integrated hydrological and water quality models for both upland watershed and riverine system. The SWAT model is a well documented and verified hydrological and water quality model that has been developed to simulate the effects of various management scenarios on the health of the environment in terms of water quantity and quality. Recently, the SWAT model has been extended to include the simulation of hydrodynamic and water quality parameters in the river system. The extended SWAT model (ESWAT) has been further extended to run using diurnally varying (hourly) weather data and produce outputs at hourly timescales. This and other improvements in the ESWAT model have been documented in the current work. Besides, the results from two case studies in Texas will be reported.

Waterresources will face increasing competition and higher environmental concerns during this century. To meet these challenges, the new Water Framework Directive has drawn up an integrated framework and established the basic principles for a sustainable water policy in the European Union. The introduction of water prices reflecting the true cost of irrigation is one of its most innovative components. In this paper, a positive mathematical programming model is developed to assess the environmental and socio-economic impacts of water pricing policies in Spanish irrigated lands. The model interface allows friendly use and easy replication in a large number of irrigation districts, selected throughout the Spanish territory. The model results show the impact on environmental indicators, water consumption, cropping patterns, technology adoption, labor, farmers' income, and the water agency revenues when different scenarios of cost recovery are considered. It is argued that this modeling approach may be used as a management tool to assist in the implementation of the cost recovery approach of the new Water Framework Directive.

Waterresources are essential for socio-economic development, enabling, for example, hydropower and irrigation. Waterresourcesmanagement and development are expected to become more complex and challenging and to involve new uncertainties as water development increases and accelerates in different water use sectors and is coupled with increasing population, urbanisation, and climate change. Hence, waterresources need to be managed in more integrated and sustainable way, both in Lao PDR and in the whole Mekong Basin area. Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) has become a universal paradigm of enhancing and promoting sustainable and equal waterresourcesmanagement and use. However, integrating water functions is a very complex task as it involves many actors with different interests. This research analyses the application of the IWRM approach and the related principles of integration, decentralisation, and participation in the development and management of waterresources in Laotian water regime at the water use sectors of hydropower and irrigation. A case study approach was used for the research and for the four appended articles in order to examine hydropower and irrigation sectors, institutional structures, and processes of institutional change - Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) at constitutional, organisational, and operational levels. The constitutional level refers to water policy and law, organisational to waterresourcemanagement, and operational to water use. The Management and Transition Framework (MTF) and one of its components, Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, have been used for the research to explore processes, institutions, and actors related to water governance reforms including the adoption of the IWRM paradigm, and to increase understanding of the strengths and weaknesses related to different institutional contexts and levels in Laotian watermanagement. Through Action Situations, IAD and MTF have

Policymakers and academics often identify institutional boundaries as one of the factors that shape the capacity of jurisdictions to manage natural resources such as water, forests, and scenic lands. This article examines two key bodies of literature--common-pool resourcemanagement theory and local public economy theory--to explain how the…

The lack of waterresources experienced in different parts of the world has now been recognized and analyzed by different international organizations such as WHO, the World Bank, etc. Add to this the growing urbanization and the fast socio-economic development, the water supply of many urban areas is already or will be severely threatened. Recently published documents from the UN Environmental Program confirms that severe water shortage affects 400 million people today and will affect 4 billion people by 2050. Water nowadays is getting scarce, and access to clean drinking water and water for agricultural usage is unequally distributed. The biggest opportunity and challenge for future watermanagement is how to achieve water sustainability to reduce water consumption. Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) is a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximize economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. We take the Heibe river basin where agriculture water there accounted for 90% of total water consumption as an example to study the impacts of IWRM on regional waterresources. We calculated the elasticity of substitution values between labor and land, water by each irrigation areas to find the variable elastic value among irrigation areas, and the water-use efficiency based on NPP estimation with the C-fix model and WUE estimation with NPP and ET. The empirical analysis indicated that the moderate scale of farmland is 0.27-0.53hm2 under the condition of technical efficiency of irrigation water and production. Agricultural water use accounted for 94% of the social and economic water consumption in 2012, but water efficiency and water productivity were both at a low stage. In conclusion, land use forms at present in Heihe river basin have a detrimental impact on the availability of ecological water use. promoting water

With the case study of two rural communities of Hetian County and Shawan County in Xinjiang, the foundation, operation and development of the watermanagement organizations in the two communities and their reform achievements were studied and compared. It was concluded that the reform of waterresourcesmanagement should be in accordance with the practical conditions of rural communities. Only with the same objectives of community people and by benefiting the farmers could the reform of waterresourcesmanagement be effectively implemented and achieve good results.

Waterresources components in Abu Dhabi encompass the conventional sources (rain, springs, ponds and groundwater), and unconventional sources (desalinated water and reclaimed wastewater). The latter represent the most important resources for the time being, since ground water is brackish or salty and the annual rainfall is very low in Abu Dhabi Emirate. Thus conventional waterresources are considered under sever depletion and exceeded their natural recharging capacity by 24 times. Per capita...

Full Text Available The urban environment has to be concerned with the integrated waterresourcesmanagement, which necessarily includes the concept of basin unity and governance. The traditional urban water cycle framework, which includes water supply, sewerage and wastewater treatment services, is being replaced by a holistic and systemic concept, where water is associated with urbanism and sustainability policies. This global point of view cannot be ignored as new regulations demand systemic and environmental approaches to the administrations, for instance, in the management of urban drainage and sewerage systems. The practical expression of this whole cluster interactions is beginning to take shape in several countries, with the definition of Low Impact Development and Water Sensitivity Urban Design concepts. Intends to integrate this new strategic approach under the name: “Water Sensitive Urban Development” (WSUD. With WSUD approach, the current urban water systems (originally conceived under the traditional concept of urban water cycle can be transformed, conceptual and physically, for an integrated management of the urban water system in new models of sustainable urban development. A WSUD implementing new approach to the management of pollution associated with stormwater in the urban water system is also presented, including advances in environmental regulations and incorporation of several techniques in Spain.

According to the features of the basins in arid areas, in this paper a quantified study framework of sustainable management of waterresources is developed, and the contents include mainly the quantification rules, index system, basic models and quantification method. A quantified study method (M-D method) about sustainable management of waterresources is put forward based on the simulation and integrative development degree. In the method, the fuzzy subordinatness description and the multi-rule integration are used to calculate the integrative development degree so as to quantitatively describe the sustainable development degree of economic society; the mathematical simulation is used to quantitatively describe the interactions between waterresources, economic society and ecosystems so as to lay a foundation for quantitatively giving expression to the development situation of economic society related to the management of waterresources; based on the organic combination of these two,quantification rules and other constraint conditions, a quantified model of waterresourcesmanagement is developed. The M-D method is applied to developing a scientific scheme of waterresourcesmanagement in the Bosten Lake Basin, Xinjiang, China.

This report provides an overview of the results of the Vital the Nicaraguan WaterResourcesManagement Initiative, Issues process as implemented for a collaborative effort between the Nicaraguan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and Sandia National Laboratories. This initiative is being developed to assist in the development of an efficient and sustainable waterresourcesmanagement system for Nicamgua. The Vital Issues process was used to provide information for developing a project that will develop and implement an advanced information system for managing Nicaragua's waterresources. Three Vital Issues panel meetings were convened to 1) develop a mission statement and evaluation criteria for identifying and ranking the issues vital to waterresourcesmanagement in Nicaragua 2) define and rank the vital issues; and 3) identify a preliminary list of information needed to address the vital issues. The selection of panelists from the four basic institutional perspectives- government, industiy, academe, and citizens' groups (through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs))-ensured a high level of stakeholder representation on the panels. The already existing need for a waterresourcemanagement information system has been magnified in the aftemnath of Hurricane Mitch. This information system would be beneficial for an early warning system in emergencies, and the modeling and simulation capabilities of the system would allow for advanced planning. Additionally, the outreach program will provide education to help Nicaraguan improve their water hygiene practices.

Realistic representations of sectoral water withdrawals and consumptive demands and their allocation to surface and groundwater sources are important for improving modeling of the integrated water cycle. To inform future model development, we enhance the representation of watermanagement in a regional Earth system (ES) model with a spatially distributed allocation of sectoral water demands simulated by a regional integrated assessment (IA) model to surface and groundwater systems. The integrated modeling framework (IA-ES) is evaluated by analyzing the simulated regulated flow and sectoral supply deficit in major hydrologic regions of the conterminous U.S, which differ from ES studies looking at water storage variations. Decreases in historical supply deficit are used as metrics to evaluate IA-ES model improvement in representating the complex sectoral human activities for assessing future adaptation and mitigation strategies. We also assess the spatial changes in both regulated flow and unmet demands, for irrigation and nonirrigation sectors, resulting from the individual and combined additions of groundwater and return flow modules. Results show that groundwater use has a pronounced regional and sectoral effect by reducing water supply deficit. The effects of sectoral return flow exhibit a clear east-west contrast in the hydrologic patterns, so the return flow component combined with the IA sectoral demands is a major driver for spatial redistribution of waterresources and water deficits in the US. Our analysis highlights the need for spatially distributed sectoral representation of watermanagement to capture the regional differences in interbasin redistribution of waterresources and deficits.

Environmental problems and issues have no geographical bounds.Many are global in scale;others may be bounded in some manner to a particular region,yet share features with similar problems in other locales throughout the world.It is important,then,for environmental researchers,policymakers,and practitioners to reach across national and cultural boundaries to discuss these issues and learn from each other.For more than 25 years an ongoing international seminar-study tour program initiated by the Environmental and WaterResources Institute (EWRI),a specialty institute within the American Society of Civil Engineers,has provided such a learning opportunity for engineers and scientists from throughout the world.Under the auspices of EWRI,seminar-study tours are scheduled approximately biennially at various locations around the world.Recent locations for seminar-study tour events have been Mexico (2006),Viet Nam (2008),Peru (2010),and China (2011).The Beijing seminar-study tour was held from October 26th to 31st and was hosted and co-sponsored by the School of Environment at Beijing Normal University.In addition to publicity support provided by EWRI,the Beijing seminarstudy tour received financial support from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay,Green Bay,Wisconsin,USA,with the latter also serving as cosponsor.

Al-Ain is the second largest city in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the third in the UAE. Currently, desalination plants are the only source of drinking water in the city with an average daily supply of 170 MIG. Recently, Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) released Al-Ain 2030 Plan. Projects suggested in this plan, over and above the expected natural population growth, will certainly put additional stress on the waterresources in the city. Therefore, Al-Ain city seems to be in urgent need for an integrated waterresourcesmanagement strategy towards achieving sustainable development. This strategy will contain three main components; namely, a Water Demand Forecasting Model (WDFM), a Water Budget Model (WBM), and a WaterResources Optimization Model (WROM). The main aim of this paper is to present the WBM that estimates all inflows and outflows to assess waterresources sustainability in the city.

A significant philosophical watermanagement controversy exists over the balance between economics, social equity and environmental protection in integrated waterresourcesmanagement. For many, the economic outcomes predominate, even to the marginalization of the others. This conviction became significant in the United States in 1980 when the United States Supreme Court ruled that groundwater, under certain circumstances, could be considered a commodity of interstate commerce. The ruling differentiated between water as a human need and as an economic good. (Sporhase, 1982)

Full Text Available Mountains are essential sources of freshwater for our world, but their role in global waterresources could well be significantly altered from anticipated climate change. How well do we understand these changes today, and what are implications for waterresourcesmanagement and for policy?

With these questions in mind, a dozen researchers – most of them with experience in collaborating with watermanagers – from around the world assembled for a workshop in Göschenen, Switzerland on 16–19 September 2009 by invitation of the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI. Their goal was to develop an up-to-date overview of mountain waterresources and climate change and to identify pressing issues with relevance for science and society.

This special issue of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences assembles contributions providing insight into climate change and waterresources for selected case-study mountain regions from around the world. The present introductory article is based on analysis of these regions and on the workshop discussions. We will give a brief overview of the subject (Sect. 1, introduce the case-study regions (Sect. 2 and examine the state of knowledge regarding the importance of water supply from mountain areas for waterresources in the adjacent lowlands and anticipated climate change impacts (Sect. 3. From there, we will identify research and monitoring needs (Sect. 4, make recommendations for research, waterresourcesmanagement and policy (Sect. 5 and finally draw conclusions (Sect. 6.

of stochastic dynamic programming, to optimize waterresourcesmanagement in the Ziya River basin. Natural runoff from the upper basin was estimated with a rainfall-runoff model autocalibrated using in situ measured discharge. The runoff serial correlation was described by a Markov chain and used as input...... for the optimization model. This model was used to assess the economic impacts of ecosystem minimum flow constraints, limited groundwater pumping, and the middle route of the South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP). A regional climate shift has exacerbated water scarcity and increased water values, resulting...... in stricter watermanagement. The results show that the SNWTP reduces the impacts of water scarcity and impacts optimal watermanagement in the basin. The presented modeling framework provides an objective basis for the development of tools to avoid overpumping groundwater resources at minimum costs....

It is a challenge for China to address its serious waterresource problems, and inefficient water use. Improving water use efficiency is the key solution to dealing with this issue. There are two basic mechanisms practiced in the world aiming to pursue water conservation, i.e. administrative and market-based management pattern. Water as an irreplaceable resource with many attributes, either public or market-based management mechanism has its disadvantages. In order to avoid the inherent "administrative failure" or "market failure", this paper emphasizes the importance of changing traditional waterresourcemanagement mechanism to establish a mixed mechanism of public and market watermanagement based on China's conditions and experiences from developed countries. Three key aspects of this combined mechanism are identified in this paper, i.e. recognizing and managingwater rights to promote efficiency, strengthening effectiveness of government management to lower transaction cost and encouraging water user participation to increase flexibility. Detailed information on implementing of this combined mechanism in China is given in the end.

Full Text Available Waterresources cannot be managed, unless we know where they are, in what quantity and quality, and how variable they are likely to be in the foreseeable future. Data from hydrological networks are used by public and private sectors for a variety of different applications. This paper discusses the value proposition behind the collection, analysis and use of hydrological data in support of these applications. The need for hydrological data and the requirements for the data are outlined, and information is provided on topics such as status of networks and data access and sharing. This paper outlines elements of the contribution by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO to hydrological data collection and covers aspects related to quality management in the collection of hydrological data, especially regarding streamflow gauging, network design and capacity building for services delivery. It should be noted that the applications which make use of hydrological data may also be significantly impacted by climate change.

Full Text Available Water covers about 70% of the earth’s surface and it exists naturally in the earth in all the three physical states of matter and it is always moving around because the water flows with the current. Out of the earth’s percentage of water covering the surface, only about 2.5% is fresh water and due to the fact that most are stored in deep groundwater, a small amount is readily available for human use. Water scarcity is becoming a major concern for people around the world and the need to protect the existing ones and find ways or means to provide safe water for individuals around the globe in adequate quantities with keeping the needs of future generations in mind. Water is life, and it is linked with lots of services either directly or indirectly, such as; human health and welfare and social and economic development of a community or country. The need to delve into Ghana’s waterresourcesmanagement is essential. The study reviewed existing literature on the various members of the WaterResource Commission (WRC in Ghana; the various basins in the country; the existing measures that the WRC authorities have in place to deal with waterresourcesmanagement issues; the challenges that hinder the progress of their achievements and some suggestions that if considered can improve the current waterresourcesmanagement situations in Ghana.

Water is crucial in supporting people's daily life and the continual quest for socio-economic development. It is also a fundamental resource for ecosystems. Due to the associated complexities and uncertainties, as well as intensive competition over limited waterresources between human beings and ecosystems, decision makers are facing increased pressure to respond effectively to various water-related issues and conflicts from an integrated point of view. This quandary requires a focused effort to resolve a wide range of issues related to waterresources, as well as the associated economic and environmental implications. Effective systems analysis approaches under uncertainty that successfully address interactions, complexities, uncertainties, and changing conditions associated with waterresources, human activities, and ecological conditions are desired, which requires a systematic investigation of the previous studies in relevant areas. Systems analysis and optimization modeling for integrated waterresourcesmanagement under uncertainty is thus comprehensively reviewed in this paper. A number of related methodologies and applications related to stochastic, fuzzy, and interval mathematical optimization modeling are examined. Then, their applications to integrated waterresourcesmanagement are presented. Perspectives of effective management schemes are investigated, demonstrating many demanding areas for enhanced research efforts, which include issues of data availability and reliability, concerns over uncertainty, necessity of post-modeling analysis, and the usefulness of the development of simulation techniques.

Drought indicators are an under-used metric in UK drought management. Standardised drought indicators offer a potential monitoring and management tool for operational waterresourcemanagement. However, the use of these metrics needs further investigation. This work uses statistical analysis of the climatological drought signal based on meteorological drought indicators and observed streamflow data to explore the link between meteorological drought and hydrological drought to inform waterresourcemanagement for a single waterresource region. The region, covering 21,000 km2 of the English Midlands and central Wales, includes a variety of landscapes and climatological conditions. Analysis of the links between meteorological drought and hydrological drought performed using streamflow data from 'natural' catchments indicates a close positive relationship between meteorological drought indicators and streamflow, enhancing confidence in the application of drought indicators for monitoring and management. However, many of the catchments in the region are subject to modification through impoundments, abstractions and discharge. Therefore, it is beneficial to explore how climatological drought signal propagates into managed hydrological systems. Using a longitudinal study of catchments and sub-catchments that include natural and modified river reaches the relationship between meteorological and hydrological drought is explored. Initial statistical analysis of meteorological drought indicators and streamflow data from modified catchments shows a significantly weakened statistical relationship and reveals how anthropogenic activities may alter hydrological drought characteristics in modified catchments. Exploring how meteorological drought indicators link to streamflow across the water supply region helps build an understanding of their utility for operational waterresourcemanagement.

The goal of this study is to develop and analyze three scenarios in the Zayandehrud river basin in Iran using a model already built and calibrated by Safavi et al. (2015) that has results for the baseline scenario. Results from the baseline scenario show that water demands will be supplied at the cost of depletion of surface and ground waterresources, making this scenario undesirable and unsustainable. Supply Management, Demand Management, and Meta (supply and demand management) scenarios are the selected scenarios in this study. They are to be developed and declared into the Zayandehrud model to assess and evaluate the imminent status of the basin. Certain strategies will be employed for this purpose to improve and rectify the current management policies. The five performance criteria of time-based and volumetric reliability, resilience, vulnerability, and maximum deficit will be employed in the process of scenario analysis and evaluation. The results obtained from the performance criteria will be summed up into a so-called 'WaterResources Sustainability Index' to facilitate comparison among the likely trade-offs. Uncertainties arising from historical data, management policies, rainfall-runoff model, demand priorities, and performance criteria are considered in the proposed conceptual framework and modeled by appropriate approaches. Results show that the Supply Management scenario can be used to improve upon the demand supply but that it has no tangible effects on the improvement of the resources in the study region. In this regard, the Demand Management scenario is found to be more effective than the water supply one although it still remains unacceptable. Results of the Meta scenario indicate that both the supply and demand management scenarios must be applied if the waterresources are to be safeguarded against degradation and depletion. In other words, the supply management scenario is necessary but not adequate; rather, it must be coupled to the demand

Full Text Available of the NWA (36:1998), the most important management functions are protection, management and equitable allocation. The fundamental principle guiding the NWA (36:1998) of South Africa is that water is a national resource, owned by the people of South Africa...

Full Text Available A more efficient use of waterresources in agriculture, especially in horticulture and floriculture, is a concerning issue to choose sounder technical and agronomical practices for managing these resources vis-à-vis: a feasible water economy, the enhancement of natural equilibria and at the same time an increased crop competitiveness. In horticulture, several options are suitable: cultivar choice, timing and type of cropping system, fertilization plan and soil preparation, as well as, weed control and mulching. Micro-irrigation systems play an important role to efficiently reduce water losses and to increase irrigation performance, even if not always are economically feasible in all the cases. The choice of the irrigation management strategy involves a deep understanding of crop water requirements and its responses to water stress, including the identification of critical periods and their economical impact over the crop return. Besides nowadays, there are several new interesting perspectives in the irrigation arena by the employment of moisture sensors (TRD and FDR probes. Considered the scarcity of good quality waterresources and its use-competition with other sectors (industrial and civil, for the agriculture will be destinated even all low quality waterresources (brackish and wastewater. Within well-delimited standards of quality related to the type of crop and its main use, the use of those kind of waterresources would be feasible by adopting and integrating all the possible management strategies, whose choice indeed requires a deep glance on into its cost-benefit.

Full Text Available A more efficient use of waterresources in agriculture, especially in horticulture and floriculture, is a concerning issue to choose sounder technical and agronomical practices for managing these resources vis-à-vis: a feasible water economy, the enhancement of natural equilibria and at the same time an increased crop competitiveness. In horticulture, several options are suitable: cultivar choice, timing and type of cropping system, fertilization plan and soil preparation, as well as, weed control and mulching. Micro-irrigation systems play an important role to efficiently reduce water losses and to increase irrigation performance, even if not always are economically feasible in all the cases. The choice of the irrigation management strategy involves a deep understanding of crop water requirements and its responses to water stress, including the identification of critical periods and their economical impact over the crop return. Besides nowadays, there are several new interesting perspectives in the irrigation arena by the employment of moisture sensors (TRD and FDR probes. Considered the scarcity of good quality waterresources and its use-competition with other sectors (industrial and civil, for the agriculture will be destinated even all low quality waterresources (brackish and wastewater. Within well-delimited standards of quality related to the type of crop and its main use, the use of those kind of waterresources would be feasible by adopting and integrating all the possible management strategies, whose choice indeed requires a deep glance on into its cost-benefit.

With the increasing trend of water-related disasters such as floods and droughts resulting from climate change, the integrated management of waterresources is gaining importance recently. Korea has worked towards preventing disasters caused by floods and droughts, managingwaterresources efficiently through the coordinated operation of river facilities such as dams, weirs, and agricultural reservoirs. This has been pursued to enable everyone to enjoy the benefits inherent to the utilization of waterresources, by preserving functional rivers, improving their utility and reducing the degradation of water quality caused by floods and droughts. At the same time, coordinated activities are being conducted in multi-purpose dams, hydro-power dams, weirs, agricultural reservoirs and water use facilities (featuring a daily water intake of over 100 000 m3 day-1) with the purpose of monitoring the management of such facilities. This is being done to ensure the protection of public interest without acting as an obstacle to sound watermanagement practices. During Flood Season, each facilities contain flood control capacity by limited operating level which determined by the Regulation Council in advance. Dam flood discharge decisions are approved through the flood forecasting and management of Flood Control Office due to minimize flood damage for both upstream and downstream. The operational plan is implemented through the council's predetermination while dry season for adequate quantity and distribution of water.

Full Text Available With the increasing trend of water-related disasters such as floods and droughts resulting from climate change, the integrated management of waterresources is gaining importance recently. Korea has worked towards preventing disasters caused by floods and droughts, managingwaterresources efficiently through the coordinated operation of river facilities such as dams, weirs, and agricultural reservoirs. This has been pursued to enable everyone to enjoy the benefits inherent to the utilization of waterresources, by preserving functional rivers, improving their utility and reducing the degradation of water quality caused by floods and droughts. At the same time, coordinated activities are being conducted in multi-purpose dams, hydro-power dams, weirs, agricultural reservoirs and water use facilities (featuring a daily water intake of over 100 000 m3 day−1 with the purpose of monitoring the management of such facilities. This is being done to ensure the protection of public interest without acting as an obstacle to sound watermanagement practices. During Flood Season, each facilities contain flood control capacity by limited operating level which determined by the Regulation Council in advance. Dam flood discharge decisions are approved through the flood forecasting and management of Flood Control Office due to minimize flood damage for both upstream and downstream. The operational plan is implemented through the council's predetermination while dry season for adequate quantity and distribution of water.

Water supply is one of the priority management areas of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission. The desired results of the water supply is to meet immediate and future water needs of the people of the basin, in order to maintain sustainable economic viability, protect instream uses, and ensure ecological diversity. In this study, a GIS-based model is designed and developed to assist waterresource planning and management in the Susquehanna River Basin. A comprehensive basin-wide water use geographic database is compiled by integrating reported/approved water use and estimated water use if no monitoring data is available, such as agriculture water use. Then water availability at each WBD10 watersheds within the Susquehanna River Basin are then determined based on the ecosystem flow needs and acceptable hydrologic alternation. A GIS-based basin-wide model integrates the water use and water availability and couples with a module that allows iterative evaluation of waterresourcesmanagement alternatives. The model is capable of quantification and graphic presentation of water use and availability at various spatial scale and performance of spatial analysis and scenario analysis to aid in determining optimized waterresourcesmanagement.

Full Text Available This paper reports on potential applications of IoT technologies that could contribute to waterresourcemanagement in South Africa. The authors visited South Africa’s Department of Water and Sanitation website and the South African government...

With water availability increasingly restricted by deficiencies in quality and quantity, waterresourcesmanagement is a central issue in planning for sustainability in the Anthropocene. We first offer a definition of sustainability based on the ease with which capitals (e.g., na...

The majority of people in Limpopo river basin depend on rainfed agriculture. Unfortunately the Limpopo is water scarce, and parts of the basin such as the Mzingwane catchment are under stress in terms of agro-ecological and socio-politico-economic conditions. Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (I

The majority of people in Limpopo river basin depend on rainfed agriculture. Unfortunately the Limpopo is water scarce, and parts of the basin such as the Mzingwane catchment are under stress in terms of agro-ecological and socio-politico-economic conditions. Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (I

Climate change, urbanization and water pollution cause adverse effects and rehabilitation costs that may exceed the carrying capacity of cities. Currently, there is no internationally standardized indicator framework for urban Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM). The City Blueprint® is a fi

The Ecosystem Services are defined as the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfil human life. A strongly related concept is the Integrated WaterResourcesManagement. It is a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. From these definitions, it is clear that in order to cover so many watermanagement and ecosystems related aspects the use of integrative models is increasingly necessary. In this study, we propose to link a hydrologic model and a water allocation model in order to assess the Freshwater Production as an Ecosystem Service in anthropised river basins. First, the hydrological model allows determining the volume of water generated by each sub-catchment; that is, the biophysical quantification of the service. This result shows the relevance of each sub-catchment as a source of freshwater and how this could change if the land uses are modified. On the other hand, the watermanagement model allocates the available waterresources among the different water uses. Then, it is possible to provide an economic value to the waterresources through the use of demand curves, or other economic concepts. With this second model, we are able to obtain the economical quantification of the Ecosystem Service. Besides, the influence of watermanagement and infrastructures on the service provision can be analysed. The methodology is applied to the Tormes WaterResources System, in Spain. The software used are EVALHID and SIMGES, for hydrological and management aspects, respectively. Both models are included in the Decision Support System Shell AQUATOOL for waterresources planning and management. A scenario approach is presented to illustrate the potential of the methodology, including the current

This report provides an overview of the results of the Vital Issues process as implemented for the Senegal WaterResourcesManagement Initiative, a collaborative effort between the Senegalese Ministry of WaterResources and Sandia National Laboratories. This Initiative is being developed to assist in the development of an efficient and sustainable waterresourcesmanagement system for Senegal. The Vital Issues process was used to provide information for the development of a proposal that will recommend actions to address the key management issues and establish a state-of-the-art decision support system (DSS) for managing Senegal`s waterresources. Three Vital Issues panel meetings were convened to (1) develop a goal statement and criteria for identifying and ranking the issues vital to waterresourcesmanagement in Senegal; (2) define and rank the issues, and (3) identify and prioritize a preliminary list of information needed to address the vital issues. The selection of panelists from the four basic institutional perspectives (government, industry, academe, and citizens` interest groups) ensured a high level of stakeholder representation on the panels.

Pakistan has one of the largest contiguous irrigation systems in the world called as Indus River Irrigation System (IRIS). In 1951, soon after its independence, Pakistan was water abundant country but due to poor management practices the country has now become water scarce. This study will provide a detailed analysis of the watermanagement issues and emerging challenges of the Indus River Basin in Pakistan. The research shows the importance of hydrometeorologic forecast under aleatory and epistemic uncertainties and that the Pakistan needs to focus on adaptive management to climate and land use changes and developing reservoirs to enhance water storage capacity keeping in view environmental degradation, and also adopting modern techniques of monitoring the flow of water to have equitable and justifiable shares from individual watercourse to all provinces so as interprovincial and transboundary water conflicts may not happen in the future. Subsequently, a paradigm shift is needed in waterresources development and management for sustainable economic growth.

The Indus basin is one of the regions in the world that is faced with major challenges for its water sector, due to population growth, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, environmental degradation, unregulated utilization of the resources, inefficient water use and poverty, all aggravated by climate change. The Indus Basin is shared by 4 countries - Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and China. With a current population of 237 million people which is projected to increase to 319 million in 2025 and 383 million in 2050, already today waterresources are abstracted almost entirely (more than 95% for irrigation). Climate change will result in increased water availability in the short term. However in the long term water availability will decrease. Some current aspects in the basin need to be re-evaluated. During the past decades water abstractions - and especially groundwater extractions - have augmented continuously to support a rice-wheat system where rice is grown during the kharif (wet, summer) season (as well as sugar cane, cotton, maize and other crops) and wheat during the rabi (dry, winter) season. However, the sustainability of this system in its current form is questionable. Additional water for domestic and industrial purposes is required for the future and should be made available by a reduction in irrigation requirements. This paper gives a comprehensive listing and description of available options for current and future sustainable waterresourcesmanagement (WRM) within the basin. Sustainable WRM practices include both water supply management and water demand management options. Water supply management options include: (1) reservoir management as the basin is characterised by a strong seasonal behaviour in water availability (monsoon and meltwater) and water demands; (2) water quality conservation and investment in wastewater infrastructure; (3) the use of alternative waterresources like the recycling of wastewater and desalination; (4) land use

Full Text Available The Indus basin is one of the regions in the world that is faced with major challenges for its water sector, due to population growth, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, environmental degradation, unregulated utilization of the resources, inefficient water use and poverty, all aggravated by climate change. The Indus Basin is shared by 4 countries – Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and China. With a current population of 237 million people which is projected to increase to 319 million in 2025 and 383 million in 2050, already today waterresources are abstracted almost entirely (more than 95% for irrigation. Climate change will result in increased water availability in the short term. However in the long term water availability will decrease. Some current aspects in the basin need to be re-evaluated. During the past decades water abstractions – and especially groundwater extractions – have augmented continuously to support a rice-wheat system where rice is grown during the kharif (wet, summer season (as well as sugar cane, cotton, maize and other crops and wheat during the rabi (dry, winter season. However, the sustainability of this system in its current form is questionable. Additional water for domestic and industrial purposes is required for the future and should be made available by a reduction in irrigation requirements. This paper gives a comprehensive listing and description of available options for current and future sustainable waterresourcesmanagement (WRM within the basin. Sustainable WRM practices include both water supply management and water demand management options. Water supply management options include: (1 reservoir management as the basin is characterised by a strong seasonal behaviour in water availability (monsoon and meltwater and water demands; (2 water quality conservation and investment in wastewater infrastructure; (3 the use of alternative waterresources like the recycling of wastewater and desalination; (4

Intensification of agricultural development has led to water supply conflicts and exacerbation of environmental problems in many developing countries. In Thailand, for example, issues of water access between upstream and downstream users and on-site erosion and off-site water quality are common in the Northern Highlands. The authors report on a framework which has been developed to assist improved land use planning and water allocation. It can be used to assess the water supply, environmental and socioeconomic impacts of land use, climate and government policy. This framework utilises the integration of catchment supply models, crop, water allocation and erosion models, as well as models of household decision making. For the Mae Chaem catchment in Thailand, the authors present details of the particular method of integration of these models and results for the individual model components. The effects of changes in land use and climate variations on the distribution of water supply, crop yields and erosion illustrate the types of tradeoffs that have to be made. Crucial to the effectiveness of such integrated tools is an understanding of the reliability of the integrated model's predictions of different outcomes. The authors present a relevant framework for analysing model uncertainty in order to appreciate the degree to which one can confidently differentiate among different model outcomes resulting from different land use changes.

This workshop presentation focuses on potential uses of unmanned aircraft observations in support of waterresourcemanagement and agriculture. The presentation will provide an overview of NASA Airborne Science capabilities with an emphasis on past UAV missions to provide context on accomplishments as well as technical challenges. I will also focus on recent NASA Ames efforts to assist in irrigation management and invasive species management using airborne and satellite datasets.

Floods are the most important natural hazard in the EU and US, causing 700 deaths and at least €25 billion in insured economic losses in Europe since 1998, and causing nearly $10 billion annual average flood losses in the US. Flood control is commonly viewed as a matter of building dykes, dams, and other structures, but effective flood management within the perspective of Integrated WaterResourceManagement (IWRM) must address multiple components of the flood risk management cycle (Figure 1)...

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. This revised, updated textbook presents a systems approach to the planning, management, and operation of waterresources infrastructure in the environment. Previously published in 2005 by UNESCO and Deltares (Delft Hydraulics at the time), this new edition, written again with contributions from Jery R. Stedinger, Jozef P. M. Dijkman, and Monique T. Villars, is aimed equally at students and professionals. It introduces readers to the concept of viewing issues involving waterresources as a system of multiple interacting components and scales. It offers guidelines for initiating and carrying out waterresource system planning and management projects. It introduces alternative optimization, simulation, and statistical methods useful for project identification, design, siting, operation and evaluation and for studying post-planning issues. The authors cover both basin-wide and urban water issues and present ways of identifying and evaluating alternatives for ...

Full Text Available Integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM and adaptive management (AM are two institutional and management paradigms designed to address shortcomings within water systems governance; the limits of hierarchical water institutional arrangements in the case of IWRM and the challenge of making watermanagement decisions under uncertainty in the case of AM. Recently, there has been a trend to merge these paradigms to address the growing complexity of stressors shaping watermanagement such as globalization and climate change. However, because many of these joint approaches have received little empirical attention, questions remain about how they might work, or not, in practice. Here, we explore a few of these issues using empirical research carried out in Brazil. We focus on highlighting the potentially negative interactions, tensions, and trade-offs between different institutions/mechanisms perceived as desirable as research and practice attempt to make water systems management simultaneously integrated and adaptive. Our examples pertain mainly to the use of techno-scientific knowledge in watermanagement and governance in Brazil's IWRM model and how it relates to participation, democracy, deliberation, diversity, and adaptability. We show that a legacy of technical and hierarchical management has shaped the integration of management, and subsequently, the degree to which management might also be adaptive. Although integrated systems may be more legitimate and accountable than top-down command and control ones, the mechanisms of IWRM may be at odds with the flexible, experimental, and self-organizing nature of AM.

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Waterresources globally are affected by a complex mixture of stressors resulting from a range of drivers, including urban and agricultural land use, hydropower generation and climate change. Understanding how stressors interfere and impact upon ecological status and ecosystem services is essential for developing effective River Basin Management Plans and shaping future environmental policy. This paper details the nature of these problems for Europe's waterresources and the need to find solutions at a range of spatial scales. In terms of the latter, we describe the aims and approaches of the EU-funded project MARS (Managing Aquatic ecosystems and waterResources under multiple Stress) and the conceptual and analytical framework that it is adopting to provide this knowledge, understanding and tools needed to address multiple stressors. MARS is operating at three scales: At the water body scale, the mechanistic understanding of stressor interactions and their impact upon waterresources, ecological status and ecosystem services will be examined through multi-factorial experiments and the analysis of long time-series. At the river basin scale, modelling and empirical approaches will be adopted to characterise relationships between multiple stressors and ecological responses, functions, services and waterresources. The effects of future land use and mitigation scenarios in 16 European river basins will be assessed. At the European scale, large-scale spatial analysis will be carried out to identify the relationships amongst stress intensity, ecological status and service provision, with a special focus on large transboundary rivers, lakes and fish. The project will support managers and policy makers in the practical implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), of related legislation and of the Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's WaterResources by advising the 3rd River Basin Management Planning cycle, the revision of the WFD and by developing new tools for

Full Text Available The National WaterResources Policy established the principles of participation, integration and decentralization, as well as new instruments for the management of waterresources in Brazil. The implementation of this policy created several challenges, such as establishing effective management within the framework of rural territorial structure. The example of the Cantareira’s System in Piracicaba river watershed is conducive to the understanding of this challenge. In this scenario, we analyzed the effective implementation of principles, and of two instruments of waterresourcemanagement from the perspective of farmers’ participation: the integration of watermanagement and rural land use, and public policies for rural areas. To accomplish this, we reviewed documents and literature, and considered conclusions drawn from meetings at the Technical Chamber of Use and Water Conservation in Rural Areas (CT-Rural. We identified a lack of participation by farmers’ representatives in the CT-Rural Chamber and little concern to increase their participation in the management practices. However, the support payments for environmental services projects (PES are stimulating farmers and calling attention to the Cantareira area, in addition to promoting the integration of waterresourcemanagement and rural land use. However, even though this support acknowledges the importance of the farmers, we emphasize the low priority given by the Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí Watershed Committee to the rural context of the area studied.

Presently operating satellite-based radar altimeters have the ability to monitor variations in surface water height for large lakes and reservoirs, and future sensors will expand observational capabilities to many smaller water bodies. Such remote sensing provides objective, independent information where in situ data are lacking or access is restricted. A USDA/NASA (http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer/global_reservoir/) program is performing operational altimetric monitoring of the largest lakes and reservoirs around the world using data from the NASA/CNES, NRL, and ESA missions. Public lake-level products from the Global Reservoir and Lake Monitor (GRLM) are a combination of archived and near real time information. The USDA/FAS utilizes the products for assessing international irrigation potential and for crop production estimates; other end-users study climate trends, observe anthropogenic effects, and/or are are involved in other waterresourcesmanagement and regional water security issues. At the same time, the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (http://floodobservatory.colorado.edu/), its NASA GSFC partners (http://oas.gsfc.nasa.gov/floodmap/home.html), and associated MODIS data and automated processing algorithms are providing public access to a growing GIS record of the Earth's changing surface water extent, including changes related to floods and droughts. The Observatory's web site also provide both archival and near real time information, and is based mainly on the highest spatial resolution (250 m) MODIS bands. Therefore, it is now possible to provide on an international basis reservoir and lake storage change measurements entirely from remote sensing, on a frequently updating basis. The volume change values are based on standard numerical procedures used for many decades for analysis of coeval lake area and height data. We provide first results of this combination, including prototype displays for public access and data retrieval of water storage

Research on the combination of hydrological variation and ecological demands plays an important role in water availability assessment and sustainable management on basin scale. An integrative frame, consisting of hydrological regime modelling, ecological water demands estimation and renewable resourcesmanagement, is given in this paper in order to support the implementation of the sustainable waterresourcesmanagement. The suggested integrative frame has been used to study the integrated waterresourcesmanagement in southern Hanjiang River Basin which is the water source of South-toNorth Water Transportation Project in China. SWAT (soil and water assessment tool) model was used to simulate the monthly averaging streamflow and the amounts of ecological water demands in stream were also estimated in order to evaluate the available waterresources for the local users and the transportation project. Then we formed the developing scenarioes by coupling the available waterresources, the recovering rate of waterresources in natural water cycle, the local water use rate and the amounts of the water transported to North, and used the Scheafer model to analyze their evolving trajectories. Eventually, the sustainable waterresourcesmanagement measures were assembled by the comprehensive evaluation of the scenarioes. The research indicates that the integrative frame provided a new way for the integrated waterresourcesmanagement in river basin.

Water scarcity and its impact on agriculture is a pressing world concern. At the heart of this crisis is the balance of water exchange between the land and the atmosphere. The ability to monitor evapotranspiration provides a solution by enabling sustainable irrigation practices. The Priestley-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory model of evapotranspiration has been implemented to meet this need as a daily MODIS product with 1 to 5 km resolution. An automated data pipeline for this model implementation provides daily data with global coverage and near real-time latency using the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library. An interactive map providing on-demand statistical analysis enables waterresourcemanagers to monitor rates of water loss. To demonstrate the application of remotely-sensed evapotranspiration to waterresourcemanagement, a partnership has been arranged with the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (NMOSE). The online water research management tool was developed to meet the specifications of NMOSE using the Leaflet, GeoServer, and Django frameworks. NMOSE will utilize this tool to monitor drought and fire risk and manage irrigation. Through this test-case, it is hoped that real-time, user-friendly remote sensing tools will be adopted globally to make resourcemanagement decisions informed by the NASA Earth Observation System.

Management in waterresources development of Jinghe watershed of western rural China is examined with Participatory Rural Appraisal method--a rare applied method in China and questionnaire survey of stakeholders.Combination of these two survey methods derives good results as it could avoid personal bias in identifying and ranking the issues on a concrete basis in following up households'survey.Statistic Package for Social Sciences(SPSS)was used for data analysis.Results indicate that since the early 1980s.issues of water scarcity,river pollution,soil erosion,insufficient participation of stakeholders in waterresources use and management,as well as centrahzed water planning and management system have created difficulties for sustainable development of the watershed.The stakeholders and local governments are fully aware of the challenges and are committed to achieving a solution through integrated waterresourcemanagement(IWRD).The concept and the application of IWRD for rural China are reviewed and analyzed,and a framework for implementation of IWRD in China is developed.It is conchided that the keys to successful implementation of the approach will depend on optimal arrangement of institutions,policy reforms,community involvement and capacity building in water sector,which need to fully integrate various management functions within the watershed.

This slide presentation reviews how our understanding of the water cycle is enhanced by our use of satellite data, and how this informs land surface hydrology and waterresourcemanagement. It reviews how NASA's current and future satellite missions will provide Earth system data of unprecedented breadth, accuracy and utility for hydrologic analysis.

Developments in computer technology have revolutionized the study of hydrologic systems and waterresourcesmanagement. Several computer-based hydrologic/water quality models have been developed for applications in hydrologic modelling and waterresources studies. Distributed parameter models, necessary for basin-scale studies, have large input data requirements. Geographic information systems (GIS) and model-GIS interfaces aid the efficient creation of input data files required by such models. One such model available for the waterresources professional is the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), a distributed parameter model developed by the United States Department of Agriculture. This paper describes some recent advances made in the application of SWAT and the SWAT-GIS interface for waterresourcesmanagement. Four case studies are presented. The Hydrologic Unit Model for the United States (HUMUS) project used SWAT to conduct a national-scale analysis of the effect of management scenarios on water quantity and quality. Integration of the SWAT model with rainfall data available from the WSR-88D radar network helps us to incorporate the spatial variability of rainfall into the modelling process. This study demonstrates the usefulness of radar rainfall data in distributed hydrologic studies and the potential of SWAT for application in flood analysis and prediction. A hydrologic modelling study of the Sondu river basin in Kenya using SWAT indicates the potential for application of the model in African watersheds and points to the need for development of better model input data sets in Africa, which are critical for detailed waterresources studies. The application of SWAT for water quality analysis in the Bosque river basin, Texas demonstrates the strength of the model for analysing different management scenarios to minimize point and non-point pollution, and its potential for application in total maximum daily load (TMDL) studies.

To advance understanding of the interactions between human activities and the water cycle, an integrated terrestrial water cycle component has been developed for Earth system models. This includes a land surface model fully coupled to a river routing model and a generic watermanagement model to simulate natural and regulated flows. A global integrated assessment model and its regionalized version for the U.S. are used to simulate water demand consistent with the energy technology and socio-economics scenarios. Human influence on the hydrologic cycle includes regulation and storage from reservoirs, consumptive use and withdrawal from multiple sectors ( irrigation and non-irrigation) and overall redistribution of waterresources in space and time. As groundwater provides an important source of water supply for irrigation and other uses, the integrated modeling framework has been extended with a simplified representation of groundwater as an additional supply source, and return flow generated from differences between withdrawals and consumptive uses from both groundwater and surface water systems. The groundwater supply and return flow modules are evaluated by analyzing the simulated regulated flow, reservoir storage and supply deficit for irrigation and non-irrigation sectors over major hydrologic regions of the conterminous U.S. The modeling framework is then used to provide insights on the reliability of waterresources by isolating the reliability due to return flow and/or groundwater sources of water. Our results show that high sectoral ratio of withdrawals over consumptive demand adds significant stress on the waterresourcesmanagement that can be alleviated by reservoir storage capacity. The return flow representation therefore exhibits a clear east-west contrast in its hydrologic signature, as well as in its ability to help meet water demand. Groundwater use has a limited hydrologic signature but the most pronounced signature is in terms of decreasing water

Natural and engineered water systems interact throughout watersheds and while there is clearly a link between watershed activities and the quantity and quality of water entering the engineered environment, these systems are considered distinct operational systems. As a result, the strategic approach to data management and modeling within the two systems is very different, leading to significant difficulties in integrating the two systems in order to make comprehensive watershed decisions. In this paper, we describe the "HYDROMENTOR" research project, a highly-structured data storage and exchange system that integrates multiple tools and models describing both natural and modified environments, to provide an integrated tool for management of waterresources. Our underlying objective in presenting our conceptual design for this water information system is to develop an integrated and automated system that will achieve monitoring and management of the water quantity and quality at watershed level for both surface water (rivers and lakes) and ground waterresources (aquifers). The uniqueness of the system is the integrated treatment of the waterresourcesmanagement issue in terms of water quantity and quality in current climate conditions and in future conditions of climatic change. On an operational level, the system provides automated warnings when the availability, use and pollution levels exceed allowable limits pre-set by the management authorities. Decision making with respect to the apportionment of water use by surface and ground waterresources are aided through this system, while the relationship between the polluting activity of a source to total incoming pollution by sources are determined; this way, the best management practices for dealing with a crisis are proposed. The computational system allows the development and application of actions, interventions and policies (alternative management scenarios) so that the impacts of climate change in quantity

In the context of integrated waterresourcesmanagement implementation, the decentralization of waterresourcesmanagement (DWRM) at the river basin level is a crucial aspect for its success. However, decentralization requires the creation of new institutions on the ground, to stimulate an environment enabling stakeholder participation and integration into the watermanagement decision-making process. In 1991, Mozambique began restructuring its water sector toward operational decentralized waterresourcesmanagement. Within this context of decentralization, new legal and institutional frameworks have been created, e.g., Regional Water Administrations (RWAs) and River Basin Committees. This paper identifies and analyzes the key institutional challenges and opportunities of DWRM implementation in Mozambique. The paper uses a critical social science research methodology for in-depth analysis of the roots of the constraining factors for the implementation of DWRM. The results obtained suggest that RWAs should be designed considering the specific geographic and infrastructural conditions of their jurisdictional areas and that priorities should be selected in their institutional capacity building strategies that match local realities. Furthermore, the results also indicate that RWAs have enjoyed limited support from basin stakeholders, mainly in basins with less hydraulic infrastructure, in securing water availability for their users and minimizing the effect of climate variability.

, innovations on resource efficiency enabling use of rest and by-products of one agricultural activity as an input for another one will be profitable for the food producers and will also be better for the environment. The creative design process to reach the required technological and policy innovations contributes to the developed adaptation strategy to face drought and water scarcity. Results will incorporate some previously un-thought of options. The issues of water scarcity and drought have consequences and implications that can no longer be adequately addressed by any one of the Ministries alone. Many other government departments and agencies must be involved and decisions will have to be made at the highest political level. All policies in Egypt must be conscious of the limitations in water availability, and water policies need to address technological developments as well as the full range of other issues, including: macro-economic factors, economic issues that influence farm-level decisions, development of human capital, governance, and financial risk management.

Full Text Available This paper describes a tool to assist in developing waterresourcesmanagement, focusing on the sustainability concept, by a Basin Committee. This tool consists of a set of sustainability indicators for waterresourcesmanagement denominated CISGRH, which was identified by a conceptual and empirical review to meet the specific needs of the study herein - the basin committee of Tietê-J acaré Rivers (CBH-TJ. The framework of CISGRH came about through consecutive consultation processes. In the first consultation, the priority problems were identified for the study objectives, listing some possible management sustainability indicators. These preliminary indicators were also submitted to academic specialists and technicians working in CBH-TJ for a new consultation process. After these consultation stages, the CISGRH analysis and structuring were introduced. To verify the indicators’ adaptation and to compose a group as proposed by the study, these were classified according to specific sustainability principles for waterresourcesmanagement. The objective of the CISGRH implementation is to diagnose current conditions of waterresources and its management, as well as to evaluate future conditions evidenced by tendencies and interventions undertaken by the committee.

Israel is a semi-arid country, and a significant increase in population combined with sustained economic growth now place enormous pressure on the countrys scarce waterresources. To date, the Israeli government, however, has been successful in addressing this problem. Rigorous enforcement of policy, institutional and legal measures has been very effective, and in many aspects the country is a worldwide leader in waterresourcesmanagement. This paper therefore reviews Israels efforts in this area in order to identify lessons that may provide useful insights for developing countries-such as China-whose future economic growth is also threatened by water scarcity.

This article examines what is generally considered to be an unattainable goal in the western United States: integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM). Specifically, we examine an organization that is quite unique in the West, Montana's Clark Fork River Basin Task Force (Task Force), and we analyze its activities since its formation in 2001 to answer the question: are the activities and contributions of the Task Force working to promote a more strongly integrated approach to waterresourcesmanagement in Montana? After reviewing the concepts underlying IWRM, some of the issues that have been identified for achieving IWRM in the West, and the Montana system of water right allocation and issues it faces, we adapt Mitchell's IWRM framework and apply it to the analysis of the Task Force's activities in the context of IWRM. In evaluating the physical, interaction, and protocol/planning/policy components of IWRM, we find that the Task Force has been contributing to the evolution of Montana's waterresourcesmanagement towards this framework, though several factors will likely continue to prevent its complete realization. The Task Force has been successful in this regard because of its unique nature and charge, and because of the authority and power given it by successive Montana legislatures. Also critical to the success of the organization is its ability to help translate into policy the outcomes of legal and quasi-judicial decisions that have impacted the state's waterresourcesmanagement agency.

Environmental quality monitoring of waterresources is challenged with providing the basis for safeguarding the environment against adverse biological effects of anthropogenic chemical contamination from diffuse and point sources. While current regulatory efforts focus on monitoring and assessing a

A double-sided fuzzy chance-constrained fractional programming (DFCFP) method is developed for planning waterresourcesmanagement under uncertainty. In DFCFP the system marginal benefit per unit of input under uncertainty can also be balanced. The DFCFP is applied to a real case of waterresourcesmanagement in the Zhangweinan River Basin, China. The results show that the amounts of water allocated to the two cities (Anyang and Handan) would be different under minimum and maximum reliability degrees. It was found that the marginal benefit of the system solved by DFCFP is bigger than the system benefit under the minimum and maximum reliability degrees, which not only improve economic efficiency in the mass, but also remedy water deficiency. Compared with the traditional double-sided fuzzy chance-constrained programming (DFCP) method, the solutions obtained from DFCFP are significantly higher, and the DFCFP has advantages in water conservation.

Human activities have caused various changes to the Earth system, and hence the interconnections between human activities and the Earth system should be recognized and reflected in models that simulate Earth system processes. One key anthropogenic activity is waterresourcemanagement, which determines the dynamics of human-water interactions in time and space and controls human livelihoods and economy, including energy and food production. There are immediate needs to include waterresourcemanagement in Earth system models. First, the extent of human water requirements is increasing rapidly at the global scale and it is crucial to analyze the possible imbalance between water demands and supply under various scenarios of climate change and across various temporal and spatial scales. Second, recent observations show that human-water interactions, manifested through waterresourcemanagement, can substantially alter the terrestrial water cycle, affect land-atmospheric feedbacks and may further interact with climate and contribute to sea-level change. Due to the importance of waterresourcemanagement in determining the future of the global water and climate cycles, the World Climate Research Program's Global Energy and Water Exchanges project (WRCP-GEWEX) has recently identified gaps in describing human-water interactions as one of the grand challenges in Earth system modeling (GEWEX, 2012). Here, we divide waterresourcemanagement into two interdependent elements, related firstly to water demand and secondly to water supply and allocation. In this paper, we survey the current literature on how various components of water demand have been included in large-scale models, in particular land surface and global hydrological models. Issues of water supply and allocation are addressed in a companion paper. The available algorithms to represent the dominant demands are classified based on the demand type, mode of simulation and underlying modeling assumptions. We discuss

Information about climate has long been used by watermanagers to develop short term and long term plans and strategies for regional and local waterresources. Inherent within longer term forecasts is an element of uncertainty, which is particularly evident in Global Climate model results for precipitation. For example in the southwest estimates in the flow of the Colorado River based on GCM results indicate changes from 120% or current flow to 60%. Many waterresourcemanagers are now using global climate model down scaled estimates results as indications of potential climate change as part of that planning. They are addressing the uncertainty within these estimates by using an anticipatory planning approach looking at a range of possible futures. One aspect of climate that is important for such planning are estimates of future extreme storm (short term) and drought (long term) events. However, the climate science of future possible changes in extreme events is less mature than general climate change science. At a recent workshop among climate scientists and watermanagers in the southwest, it was concluded the science of climate change extreme events is at least a decade away from being robust enough to be useful for watermanagers in their waterresourcemanagement activities. However, it was proposed that there are existing estimates and records of past flooding and drought events that could be combined with general climate change science to create possible future events. These derived events could be of sufficient detail to be used by waterresourcemanagers until such time that the science of extreme events is able to provide more detailed estimates. Based on the results of this workshop and other work being done by the Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University and the Climate Assessment for the Southwest center at University of Arizona., this article will 1) review what are the extreme event data needs of WaterResourceManagers in the

One of the main challenges in the XXI century is related with the sustainable use of water. This is due to the fact that water is an essential element for the life of all who inhabit our planet. In many cases, the lack of economic valuation of waterresources causes an inefficient water use. In this regard, society expects of policymakers and stakeholders maximise the profit produced per unit of natural resources. Water planning and the Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) represent the best way to achieve this goal. The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water (SEEAW) is displayed as a tool for water allocation which enables the building of water balances in a river basin. The main concern of the SEEAW is to provide a standard approach which allows the policymakers to compare results between different territories. But building water accounts is a complex task due to the difficulty of the collection of the required data. Due to the difficulty of gauging the components of the hydrological cycle, the use of simulation models has become an essential tool extensively employed in last decades. The target of this paper is to present the building up of a database that enables the combined use of hydrological models and waterresources models developed with AQUATOOL DSSS to fill in the SEEAW tables. This research is framed within the Water Accounting in a Multi-Catchment District (WAMCD) project, financed by the European Union. Its main goal is the development of water accounts in the Mediterranean Andalusian River Basin District, in Spain. This research pretends to contribute to the objectives of the "Blueprint to safeguard Europe's waterresources". It is noteworthy that, in Spain, a large part of these methodological decisions are included in the Spanish Guideline of Water Planning with normative status guaranteeing consistency and comparability of the results.

Full Text Available The interrelationships between waterresources, food production and energy security have influenced policy for many decades so the emergence of the water-food-energy 'nexus' as a proposed new focus for waterresourcemanagement is surprising. It is suggested that this focus can be understood as a consequence of the decision by developed countries to ignore agreements reached at the 1992 Rio Summit on Sustainable Development and promote instead a 'Dublin IWRM', their original lobbying platform. That approach has not helped developing countries to address food, energy and water security nor assisted global businesses to expand or to manage the risks posed to their operations by poor watermanagement. The nexus approach begins to address these concerns by focusing on a specific 'problem-shed'. While this may disintegrate the original robust concept of integrated watermanagement, its emphasis on what water may do for society rather than what society should do for water is a step back toward a more coherent and useful paradigm.

Full Text Available Lake Trasimeno is a closed lake in Central Italy and in historically its water level has been affected by wide fluctuations mostly depending on the climate. The lake has suffered many water crises due to water scarcity and in recent decades, droughts have also severely affected the economic and environmental situation. The aim of this study was to analyze the possibility of limiting these severe level fluctuations by evaluating of feasible waterresourcemanagement policies that could also reduce the environmental stress of this area. Therefore, a specific decision support system (DSS has been developed in order to simulate different scenarios for the entire water system of the Trasimeno area. In particular, the hydrological model implemented in the DSS allowed for the simulation and validation of different management policy hypotheses for the waterresource in order to mitigate environmental and water crises for the Lake Trasimeno. Results indicated that it is possible to transfer a certain amount of water from nearby reservoirs without affecting the availability of the resource for specific users. In this way, Lake Trasimeno can benefit both from an increase in water levels in the lake, so a possible better situation in quantitatively and qualitatively.

This article explores China’s waterresourcemanagement through the application of a 10 building-block governance assessment method, which, from a holistic and integral perspective, identifies the main strengths and weaknesses of the system. It aims to provide readers with a comprehen- sive view of

This article explores prospects for community-based waterresourcesmanagement in Tlokoeng Valley, in the northern district of Lesotho. A qualitative survey was conducted to establish the pre-knowledge of the valley community. This provided a basis for a community education programme on wetlands conservation. Fifteen focus group interviews (FGIs)…

The two concepts that presently dominate waterresource research and management are the Global Water Partnership's (GWP, 2000) interpretation of Integrated WaterResourceManagement (IWRM) and Ecosystem Services (ES) as interpreted by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005). Both concepts are subject to mounting criticism, with a significant number of critiques focusing on both their conceptual and methodological incompatibility with management and governance, what has come to be known as the 'implementation gap'. Emergent within the ES and IWRM literatures, then, are two parallel debates concerning the gap between conceptualisation and implementation. Our purpose for writing this review is to argue: 1) that IWRM and ES have evolved into nearly identical concepts, 2) that they face the same critical challenge of implementation, and 3) that, if those interested in water research and management are to have a positive impact on the sustainable utilisation of dwindling waterresources, they must break the tendency to jump from concept to concept and confront the challenges that arise with implementation.

The classical model of a paradigm shift is used to explore changes that are occurring in public lands and waterresourcesmanagement. Recent policy developments suggest that the traditional paradigm, which is characterized by sustained yield, is in the process of being invalidated. While no new paradigm has been fully accepted, the emerging paradigm does appear to be based on two principles: ecosystem management and collaborative decision making. Implementation of these two principles is likely to require extensive revision of traditional management practices and institutions. Failure to address these issues could result in adoption of the rhetoric of change without any lasting shift in management practices or professional attitudes.

Proper allocation and management of groundwater is an important and critical challenge under rising water demands of various environmental sectors but good groundwater quality is often limited because of urbanization and contamination of aquifers. Given the predictive capability of groundwater models, they are often the only viable means of providing input to watermanagement decisions. However, modelling flow and transport processes can be difficult due to their unknown subsurface heterogeneity and typically unknown distribution of contaminants. As a result waterresourcemanagement tasks are based on uncertain assumption on contaminants patterns and this uncertainty is typically not incorporated into the assessment of risks associated with different proposed management scenarios. A three-dimensional groundwater model was used to improve waterresourcemanagement for a study area, where drinking water production is close to different former landfills and industrial areas. To avoid drinking water contamination, artificial groundwater recharge with surface water into the gravel aquifer is used to create a hydraulic barrier between contaminated sites and drinking water extraction wells. The model was used for simulating existing and proposed watermanagement strategies as a tool to ensure the utmost security for drinking water. A systematic evaluation of the flow direction and magnitude between existing observation points using a newly developed three point estimation method for a large amount of scenarios was carried out. Due to the numerous observation points 32 triangles (three-points) were created which cover the entire area around the Hardwald. We demonstrated that systematically applying our developed methodology helps to identify important locations which are sensitive to changing boundary conditions and where additional protection is required without highly computational demanding transport modelling. The presented integrated approach using the flow direction

Climate projections produced with CMIP5 and applied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fifth assessment report indicate that changes in precipitation and temperature are expected to occur throughout Europe in the 21th century, with a likely decrease of water availability in many regions. Besides, water demand is also expected to increase, in link with these expected climate modifications, but also due to socio-economic and demographic changes. In this respect, the use of future freshwater resources may not be sustainable from the current watermanagement perspective. Therefore adaptation strategies will most likely be needed to cope with these evolutions. In this context, the main objective of the ClimAware project (2010-2013 - www.uni-kassel.de/fb14/wasserbau/CLIMAWARE/, a project implemented within the IWRM-NET Funding Initiative) was to analyse the impacts of climate change (CC) on freshwater resources at the continental and regional scales and to identify efficient adaptation strategies to improve watermanagement for various socio-economic sectors. This should contribute to a more effective implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and its instruments (river basin management plans, programmes of measures). The project developed integrated measures for improved freshwater management under CC constraints. More specifically, the objectives of the ClimAware project were to: • elaborate quantitative projections of changes in river flows and consequences such as flood frequency, drought occurrence and sectorial water uses. • analyse the effect of CC on the hydromorphological reference conditions of rivers and therefore the definition of "good status". • define management rules/strategies concerning dam management and irrigation practices on different time perspectives. • investigate uncertainties in climate model - scenario combinations. The research approach considered both European and regional perspectives, to get

A comprehensive study on hydrology, hydro-morphology, climatology, water physico-chemistry and ecology was conducted in the Kharaa River Basin (Mongolia) between 2006 and 2013. The assessment provided a detailed characterization of waterresources for the first time and serves as a scientific basis to develop an integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM) in the region. Following European watermanagement approaches we identified "water bodies" as the smallest management sub-unit within the river basin, based on characteristic abiotic and biocenotic features. Four clearly identifiable water bodies in the Kharaa River main channel and seven water bodies in the tributaries were delineated. In order to achieve a good ecological status of the surface water bodies, type-specific undisturbed reference states of various aquatic ecosystems were identified and current deviations thereof were assessed. Based on the assessment a set of watermanagement measures was developed. With regards to water quality and quantity, the upper reaches of the Kharaa River basin were classified as having a "good" ecological and chemical status. Compared to these natural reference conditions in the upper reaches, the initial risk assessment identified several "hot spot" regions with impacted water bodies in the middle and lower basin. Therefore, the affected water bodies are at risk of not achieving the good ecological and/or chemical status for surface waters. The use of natural references conditions offers a sound scientific base to assess the impact of anthropogenic activities across the Kharaa River basin. Based on the scientific results and practical experiences from a seven-year project in the region, the potentials and limitations of IWRM implementation will be discussed in the presentation.

Full Text Available The WaterResources Planning in use doesn´t diverges substantially from the Traditional Energy Planning. With the energy crisis occurred at Brazil in 2001 the blackout possibility shows that the impact on the society might happen at any time. The same occurs to the water because of its scarcity. The Integrated Resource Planning (IRP was diffused as a way of fully managing a resource by the supply and demand sizes and can be considerated a viable option for the conventional planning. This composition is meant to do a study of the specific bibliography about the energy IRP and the WaterResourceManagement. Utilizing conceptions of the energy area, Water Integrated Resource Planning has been created to be used at the public utilities. The Water Integrated Resource Planning conducts the Water Integrated Management through this resource saving, joining this to a different tax and increasing the supply with alternative options such as the wastewater and the rainwater use.

Waterresources access is a main issue for territorial development to ensure environmental and human well-being. Indeed, sustainable development is vulnerable to water availability and climate change may affect the quantity and temporality of available waterresources for anthropogenic water uses. How then to adapt, how to change watermanagement rules and practices and how to involve stakeholders is such process? To prevent water scarcity situations, which may generate conflicts and impacts on ecosystems, it is important to think about a sustainable development where anthropogenic water uses are in good balance with forecasted waterresources availability. This implies to raise awareness and involve stakeholders for a sustainable watermanagement. Stakeholders have to think about future territorial development taking into account climate change impacts on waterresources. Collaboration between scientists and stakeholders is essential to insure consistent climate change knowledge, well identification of anthropogenic uses, tensions and stakes of the territory. However sharing information on complex questions such as climate change, hydro-meteorological modeling and practical constraints may be a difficult task. Therefore to contribute to an easier debate and to the global training of all the interested actors, a serious game about watermanagement was built. The serious game uses scientist complex models with real data but via a simple and playful web-game interface. The advantage of this interface is that it may help stakeholders, citizen or the target group to raise their understandings of impacts of climate change on waterresources and to raise their awareness to the need for a sustainable watermanagement while using state-of-the-art knowledge. The principle of the game is simple. The gamer is a mayor of a city and has to manage the water withdrawals from hydro systems, water distribution and consumption, water retreatment etc. In the same time, a clock is

Full Text Available as the goods and services that are derived from or linked to such water use (Van Wyk et al. 2006). The focus on greater equity within South Africa’s new water policy requires stakeholders to shift away from rights-based water allocations to a system where.... These drivers can be represented as axes on a matrix (Figure 1), where the general trend of change is shown as a progressive broadening of the scope of waterresourcemanagement envelopes from (A) to (C) over time. The upper left-hand quadrant represents...

Only until 2010 was enacted the first national policy related to the integrated management of waterresources in Colombia. In 2011 was established the Directorate for Integrated WaterResourcesManagement within the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development. Between 2010 to 2013 were adopted the regulatory instruments to be developed within the hierarchical structure for spatial environmental planning around the waterresources, considering both a transdisciplinary framework and a multi-ethnic and multi-participatory approach. In this context, there is a breakthrough in the development of strategic and tactic actions summarized as follows: i) technical guidelines or projects were developed for the spatial environmental planning at the macroscale river basins (i.e. Magdalena-Cauca river basin with 2.3 million hectares), meso-scale (river basins from 50.000 to 2 million hectares and aquifers) and local scale (catchments areas less than 50.000 hectares); ii) there is an advance in the knowledge of key hydrological processes in the basins of the country as well as actions to restore and preserve ecosystems essential for the regulation of water supply and ecosystem services; iii) demand characterization introducing regional talks with socio-economic stakeholders and promoting water efficiency actions; iv) water use regulation as a way for decontamination and achieving quality standards for prospective uses; v) introduction of risks analysis associated with waterresources in the spatial environmental planning and establishment of mitigation and adaptation measures; vi) strengthening the monitoring network of water quality and hydrometeorological variables; vii) strengthening interactions with national and international research as well as the implementation of a national information system of waterresources; viii) steps towards water governance with the introduction of socio-economic stakeholder in the spatial environmental planning and implementation of

Full Text Available Climate change is expected to have a large impact on waterresources worldwide. A major problem in assessing the potential impact of a changing climate on these resources is the difference in spatial scale between available climate change projections and waterresourcesmanagement. Regional climate models (RCMs are often used for the spatial disaggregation of the outputs of global circulation models. However, RCMs are time-intensive to run and typically only a small number of model runs is available for a certain region of interest. This paper investigates the value of the improved representation of local climate processes by a regional climate model for waterresourcesmanagement in the tropical Andes of Ecuador. This region has a complex hydrology and its waterresources are under pressure. Compared to the IPCC AR4 model ensemble, the regional climate model PRECIS does indeed capture local gradients better than global models, but locally the model is prone to large discrepancies between observed and modelled precipitation. It is concluded that a further increase in resolution is necessary to represent local gradients properly. Furthermore, to assess the uncertainty in downscaling, an ensemble of regional climate models should be implemented. Finally, translating the climate variables to streamflow using a hydrological model constitutes a smaller but not negligible source of uncertainty.

Workshops can be an effective avenue for the exchange of information and ideas between scientists and decision-makers. The interactive aspects of workshops promote more active participation and interactions between the two groups. In 2006, at the suggestion of waterresourcemanagers, we began presenting a series of small workshops (10-25 participants) on the use and application of tree-ring data in waterresourcemanagement. The one-day workshops cover the basic science behind tree-ring reconstructions of hydrology, resources available, and applications of the data to resourcemanagement, with presentations by both tree-ring scientists and waterresource professionals. They also include plenty of time for informal discussion. We have now held ten workshops across the western U.S., and several more are planned. We use pre-workshop surveys to tailor the workshop to the needs of the participants, and we assess the workshop's effectiveness through participant evaluations completed at the end of the workshop. We also receive post-workshop feedback in the form of follow-up emails or via word of mouth. This iterative process of evaluation, with each workshop, has enabled us to fine-tune the format and content of the workshops and respond to additional needs such as data, web resources, online tools for using paleodata, as well as follow-up workshops. This approach has resulted in an improvement in the credibility, acceptance, and use of tree-ring data in waterresource applications, as evidenced by an independent survey of workshop participants. Although the focus of these workshops has been on paleohydrologic data, this approach would be applicable to other climate-stakeholder issues as well.

Full Text Available An inventory-theory-based inexact multistage stochastic programming (IB-IMSP method is developed for planning waterresources systems under uncertainty. The IB-IMSP is based on inexact multistage stochastic programming and inventory theory. The IB-IMSP cannot only effectively handle system uncertainties represented as probability density functions and discrete intervals but also efficiently reflect dynamic features of system conditions under different flow levels within a multistage context. Moreover, it can provide reasonable transferring schemes (i.e., the amount and batch of transferring as well as the corresponding transferring period associated with various flow scenarios for solving water shortage problems. The applicability of the proposed IB-IMSP is demonstrated by a case study of planning waterresourcesmanagement. The solutions obtained are helpful for decision makers in not only identifying different transferring schemes when the promised water is not met, but also making decisions of water allocation associated with different economic objectives.

Novel and more affordable technologies are allowing new actors to engage increasingly in the monitoring of hydrological systems and the assessment of waterresources. This trend may shift data collection from a small number of mostly formal institutions (e.g., statutory monitoring authorities, water companies) toward a much more dynamic, decentralized, and diverse network of data collectors (including citizens and other non-specialists). Such a move towards a more diverse and polycentric type of monitoring may have important consequences for the generation of knowledge about waterresources and the way that this knowledge is used to govern these resources. An increasingly polycentric approach to monitoring and data collection will change inevitably the relation between monitoring and decision-making for waterresources. On a technical level, it may lead to improve availability of, and access to, data. The opportunity for actors to design and implement monitoring may also lead to data collection strategies that are tailored better to locally specific management questions. However, in a policy context the evolution may also shift balances of knowledge and power. For example, it will be easier to collect data and generate evidence to support specific agendas, or for non-specialists to challenge existing agreements, laws, and statutory authorities. Analysing a case study in the Peruvian Andes, we identify strong links with polycentric models of river basin management and governance. Polycentric models recognize the existence of multiple centres of decision-making within a catchment and provide a potential alternative to the top-down centralizing tendencies of integrated waterresourcesmanagement. Although polycentric systems are often associated with data scarcity, we argue that citizen science provides a framework for data collection in such systems and that it provides opportunities for knowledge generation, institutional capacity building and policy support, in

Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is a debilitating disease overwhelmingly caused by Wuchereria bancrofti, which is transmitted by various mosquito species. Here, we present a systematic literature review with the following objectives: (i) to establish global and regional estimates of populations at risk of LF with particular consideration of waterresource development projects, and (ii) to assess the effects of waterresource development and management on the frequency and transmission dynamics of the disease. We estimate that globally, 2 billion people are at risk of LF. Among them, there are 394.5 million urban dwellers without access to improved sanitation and 213 million rural dwellers living in close proximity to irrigation. Environmental changes due to waterresource development and management consistently led to a shift in vector species composition and generally to a strong proliferation of vector populations. For example, in World Health Organization (WHO) subregions 1 and 2, mosquito densities of the Anopheles gambiae complex and Anopheles funestus were up to 25-fold higher in irrigated areas when compared with irrigation-free sites. Although the infection prevalence of LF often increased after the implementation of a water project, there was no clear association with clinical symptoms. Concluding, there is a need to assess and quantify changes of LF transmission parameters and clinical manifestations over the entire course of waterresource developments. Where resources allow, integrated vector management should complement mass drug administration, and broad-based monitoring and surveillance of the disease should become an integral part of large-scale waste management and sanitation programs, whose basic rationale lies in a systemic approach to city, district, and regional level health services and disease prevention.

The recognition that water plays a central role in industrial, agricultural, economic, social and cultural development has, over the past half century, led to the development of strategic management approaches based on the concept of integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM). This paper assesses the extent to which IWRM theory has been converted into practice and identifies existing "research gaps". We set out our arguments as a critique of IWRM; describing its basic tenets, exploring its value as a conceptual tool, considering its scientific pedigree, questioning its novelty as a resourcemanagement paradigm, and suggesting ways of translating the theory into more widespread practice. Finally, we argue that whilst models in their broadest sense can make a significant contribution to IWRM research and practice, a revised assessment of the source of their value is required.

Australia's tropical rivers account for more than half of the nation's freshwater resources. Nearly all of these rivers flow freely to the sea, with less than 0. 01% of river flows diverted for human use, but there is increasing interest in developing the region's waterresources for irrigated agriculture. Interdisciplinary research conducted over the past decade has demonstrated the reliance of biodiversity on free-flowing rivers and has also identified a broad range of benefits that people derive from these river systems including irrigated agriculture, tourism, commercial and recreational fishing and Indigenous subsistence harvesting. This has revealed the highly coupled nature of the socio-hydrological system in northern Australia's catchments and the trade-offs among different water users. This paper provides an overview of past and current research with a focus on how socio-hydrology may assist in undertaking integrated waterresourcemanagement in this region.

Full Text Available Without sufficient data, consulting experts is a good way to quantify unknown parameters in waterresourcesmanagement which will result in human uncertainty. The aim of this paper is to introduce a new tool-uncertainty theory to deal with such uncertainty which is treated as uncertain variable with uncertainty distribution. And a dependent-chance goal programming (DCGP model is provided for waterresourcesmanagement under such circumstance. In the model uncertain measure is used to measure possibility that an event will occur which is maximized by minimizing the deviation (positive or negative deviation from target of objective event under a given priority structure. In the end, the developed model is applied to a numerical example to illustrate the effectiveness of the model. The result obtained contributes to the desired water-allocation schemes for decision-markers.

Managers of large river basins face conflicting needs for waterresources such as wildlife habitat, water supply, wastewater assimilative capacity, flood control, hydroelectricity, and recreation. The Savannah River Basin for example, has experienced three major droughts since 2000 that resulted in record low water levels in its reservoirs, impacting local economies for years. The Savannah River Basin’s coastal area contains municipal water intakes and the ecologically sensitive freshwater tidal marshes of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. The Port of Savannah is the fourth busiest in the United States, and modifications to the harbor have caused saltwater to migrate upstream, reducing the freshwater marsh’s acreage more than 50 percent since the 1970s. There is a planned deepening of the harbor that includes flow-alteration features to minimize further migration of salinity. The effectiveness of the flow-alteration features will only be known after they are constructed. One of the challenges of basin management is the optimization of water use through ongoing development, droughts, and climate change. This paper describes a model of the Savannah River Basin designed to continuously optimize regulated flow to meet prioritized objectives set by resourcemanagers and stakeholders. The model was developed from historical data by using machine learning, making it more accurate and adaptable to changing conditions than traditional models. The model is coupled to an optimization routine that computes the daily flow needed to most efficiently meet the water-resourcemanagement objectives. The model and optimization routine are packaged in a decision support system that makes it easy for managers and stakeholders to use. Simulation results show that flow can be regulated to significantly reduce salinity intrusions in the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge while conserving more water in the reservoirs. A method for using the model to assess the effectiveness of the

Developing countries often struggle with providing water security and sanitation services to their populations. An important aspect of improving security and sanitation is developing a comprehensive understanding of the country's water budget. Water For People, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing clean drinking water, is working with the Peruvian government to develop a water budget for the La Libertad region of Peru which includes the creation of an extensive watershed management plan. Currently, the data archive of the necessary variables to create the watermanagement plan is extremely limited. Implementing NASA Earth observations has bolstered the dataset being used by Water For People, and the METRIC (Mapping EvapoTranspiration at High Resolution and Internalized Calibration) model has allowed for the estimation of the evapotranspiration values for the region. Landsat 8 imagery and the DEM (Digital Elevation Model) from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) sensor onboard Terra were used to derive the land cover information, and were used in conjunction with local weather data of Cascas from Peru's National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (SENAMHI). Python was used to combine input variables and METRIC model calculations to approximate the evapotranspiration values for the Ochape sub-basin of the Chicama River watershed. Once calculated, the evapotranspiration values and methodology were shared Water For People to help supplement their decision support tools in the La Libertad region of Peru and potentially apply the methodology in other areas of need.

Water is used in most process industries for a wide range of applications. Processes and systems using water today are being subjected to increasingly stringent environmental regulations on effluents and there is growing demand for fresh water. These changes have increased the need for better watermanagement and wastewater minimisation. In Morocco, water use in the food and drink industry is extensive at approximately 24 million m3 per year including 14% of drinking water in 1994. This study was conducted in a carbonate soft drink industry plant, during two years, 2001 and 2002. We have investigated the state of consumption and use of fresh water and the generation of the effluent in the factory. The aim of the study is to identify potential opportunities for reducing fresh water intake and minimising wastewater production by studying the posibility of reuse, recycling and treatment.

Long term management of waterresources is challenging for decision makers given the range of uncertainties that exist. Such uncertainties are a function of long term drivers of change, such as climate, environmental loadings, demography, land use and other socio economic drivers. Impacts of climate change on frequency of extreme events such as drought make it a serious threat to waterresources and water security. The release of probabilistic climate information, such as the UKCP09 scenarios, provides improved understanding of some uncertainties in climate models. This has motivated a more rigorous approach to dealing with other uncertainties in order to understand the sensitivity of investment decisions to future uncertainty and identify adaptation options that are as far as possible robust. We have developed and coupled a system of models that includes a weather generator, simulations of catchment hydrology, demand for water and the waterresource system. This integrated model has been applied in the Thames catchment which supplies the city of London, UK. This region is one of the driest in the UK and hence sensitive to water availability. In addition, it is one of the fastest growing parts of the UK and plays an important economic role. Key uncertainties in long term waterresources in the Thames catchment, many of which result from earth system processes, are identified and quantified. The implications of these uncertainties are explored using a combination of uncertainty analysis and sensitivity testing. The analysis shows considerable uncertainty in future rainfall, river flow and consequently waterresource. For example, results indicate that by the 2050s, low flow (Q95) in the Thames catchment will range from -44 to +9% compared with the control scenario (1970s). Consequently, by the 2050s the average number of drought days are expected to increase 4-6 times relative to the 1970s. Uncertainties associated with urban growth increase these risks further

Full Text Available In this study, an interval-stochastic fractile optimization (ISFO model is advanced for developing optimal water-resourcesmanagement strategies under multiple uncertainties. The ISFO model can not only handle uncertainties presented in terms of probability distributions and intervals with possibility distribution boundary, but also quantify subjective information (i.e., expected system benefit preference and risk-averse attitude from different decision makers. The ISFO model is then applied to a real case of water-resources systems planning in Kaidu-kongque watershed, China, and a number of scenarios with different ecological water-allocation policies under varied p-necessity fractiles are analyzed. Results indicate that different policies for ecological water allocation can lead to varied water supplies, economic penalties, and system benefits. The solutions obtained can help decision makers identify optimized water-allocation alternatives, alleviate the water supply-demand conflict, and achieve socioeconomic and ecological sustainability, particularly when limited waterresources are available for multiple competing users.

Progress and results of an integrated study of California's waterresources are discussed. The investigation concerns itself primarily with the usefulness of remote sensing of relation to two categories of problems: (1) water supply; and (2) water demand. Also considered are its applicability to forest management and timber inventory. The cost effectiveness and utility of remote sensors such as the Earth Resources Technology Satellite for water and timber management are presented.

With increasing population pressure and water usage coupled with climate variability and change, water issues are being reported by numerous groups as the most critical environmental problems facing us in the 21st century. Competitive uses and the prevalence of river basins and aquifers that extend across boundaries engender political tensions between communities, stakeholders and countries. In addition to the numerous water availability issues, water quality related problems are seriously affecting human health and our environment. The potential crises and conflicts especially arise when water is competed among multiple uses. For example, urban areas, environmental and recreational uses, agriculture, and energy production compete for scarce resources, not only in the Western U.S. but throughout much of the U.S. and also in numerous parts of the world. Mitigating these conflicts and meeting water demands and needs requires using existing waterresources more efficiently. The NASA WaterResources Program Element works to use NASA products and technology to address these critical water issues. The primary goal of the WaterResources is to facilitate application of NASA Earth science products as a routine use in integrated waterresourcesmanagement for the sustainable use of water. This also includes the extreme events of drought and floods and the adaptation to the impacts from climate change. NASA satellite and Earth system observations of water and related data provide a huge volume of valuable data in both near-real-time and extended back nearly 50 years about the Earth's land surface conditions such as precipitation, snow, soil moisture, water levels, land cover type, vegetation type, and health. NASA WaterResources Program works closely to use NASA and Earth science data with other U.S. government agencies, universities, and non-profit and private sector organizations both domestically and internationally. The NASA WaterResources Program organizes its

Full Text Available An optimization waterresourcesmanagement study is developed in the Middle-East region and Al Nile Valley. It is based on assessment of hydrologic element of a specified area within the region, development of groundwater model, conjunctive use study, and rebalancing of the resulting waterresources. Al Adhaim basin of 4110.28 km2which is located in northern-south of Iraq is chosen as sample of study for the availability of data. It is found that the optimization technique and rebalancing of the hydrologic elements in the considered area saves 282.8 million m3 per year of surface releases, reduces operation time of Kirkuk Irrigation Canal (KIC to 6 months per year, and treats the problems of water table rise due to the excessive surface water releases.

In the coastal catchments of Shandong Province the water scarcity is aggravated due to saltwater intrusion, reducing the usability of waterresources available. Such a situation calls for sustainable integrated waterresourcesmanagement (Ⅰ-WRM). The idea for the objectives and implementation of the IWRM are explained in this paper. The general objective of the planned project disscussed in the present study is to bring together German traditional expertise in waterresourcesmanagement and newer developments in the context of the European Water Framework Directive; the research efforts aim to relieve the desperate water scarcity situation in the costal area of Shandong Province.

Full Text Available Waterresources in Romanian Carpathians-genesis, territorial distribution, management. Discussing waterresources in Romania implies a twofold approach: water as a sine qua non of life itself and water as an important factor for the development of the contemporary society. Lying in a temperate zone, Romania’s waterresources are rather modest compared with other countries in Europe. Inland rivers span 78,905 km (referred only to the 4,864 codified watercourses at an average density: 0.38 km/km2 and an annual volume: 40.6 billion m3, which means 1,765 m3/capita. To knowledge ground waters are put at 9.62 billion m3/year, of which 6 billion can be used in optimal technological and economic conditions. According to a recent UN statistical report, Romania lists at position 21 among the 34 European. Natural lakes are replenished from precipitation and springs water every year and the reserves are estimated at around 1 billion m3/year and are of local importance for watermanagement schemes. The Black Sea (in the Romanian sector could become a major source if sea water desalting could be economical.The waterresources of the drainage network were calculated on the basis of the mean liquid flow map (scale 1: 500,000 releves picture of river-waterresources in the major relief units: the Carpathian, which occupies only 27.9% of the Romanian territory, 65.3% (26.48 billion mc from a total of 40.61 billion m3 of the water is formed and regenerated every year; the hill unit, which includes the Subcarpathians, the tablelands and the piedmont hills, and occupies 42.4% of Romania’s territory, only 28.0% of the water volume is formed (11.38 billion m3, of which 8.7% (3.51 billion m3 in the Subcarpathians and 19.4% (7.87 billion m3 in the other two units; the plain unit, which covers 29.7% of the country’s territory, the water volume formed there is small (6.7%

Full Text Available Human activities have caused various changes in the Earth System, and hence, the interconnections between humans and the Earth System should be recognized and reflected in models that simulate the Earth System processes. One key anthropogenic activity is waterresourcemanagement that determines the dynamics of human–water interactions in time and space. There are various reasons to include waterresourcemanagement in Earth System models. First, the extent of human water requirements is increasing rapidly at the global scale and it is crucial to analyze the possible imbalance between water demands and supply under various scenarios of climate change and across various temporal and spatial scales. Second, recent observations show that human–water interactions, manifested through waterresourcemanagement, can substantially alter the terrestrial water cycle, affect land-atmospheric feedbacks and may further interact with climate and contribute to sea-level change. Here, we divide the waterresourcemanagement into two interdependent elements, related to water demand as well as water supply and allocation. In this paper, we survey the current literature on how various water demands have been included in large-scale models, including Land Surface Schemes and Global Hydrological Models. The available algorithms are classified based on the type of demand, mode of simulation and underlying modeling assumptions. We discuss the pros and cons of available algorithms, address various sources of uncertainty and highlight limitations in current applications. We conclude that current capability of large-scale models in terms of representing human water demands is rather limited, particularly with respect to future projections and online simulations. We argue that current limitations in simulating various human demands and their impact on the Earth System are mainly due to the uncertainties in data support, demand algorithms and large-scale models. To

The paradigm of integrated waterresourcesmanagement requires coupled analysis of hydrology and waterresources in a river basin. Population growth and uncertainties due to climate change make historic data not a reliable source of information for future planning of waterresources, hence necessit...

Waterresource consumption in Mediterranean basins is often dominated by irrigation. Climate change is expected to increase pressure on available resources, due to a decrease in total rainfall coupled with an increase in irrigation water demands due to higher temperatures. This pressure needs to be quantified in order to allow waterresourcemanagers to adapt to the impacts of climate change; this is made difficult, however, by the uncertainty in climate change scenarios. This work addressed this uncertainty by using synthetic climate change scenarios covering a good part of climate change scenarios predicted by climate models (temperature increases from 1.6 to 6.4 °C, rainfall decreases from -2.5% to -40%). The SWAT hydrological model was applied to assess changes to waterresource availability in the Portuguese part of two large Mediterranean basins, the Guadiana and the Tejo, where water is used mostly (80 to 90%) for irrigation. Changes to water demand in irrigated areas were evaluated, for the same scenarios, using the FAO method, and taking into account adaptation through precision irrigation methods. Supply and demands were compared both for average years and droughts with a 5 year return period, in order to identify changes to the frequency of severe water stress and water shortfall years. The results of this work indicate that climate change would significantly impair the capacity of the Guadiana river basin for sustaining current water uses, with severe water stress coupled with water shortage during drought years predicted for low magnitude climate change; and permanent water shortfalls occurring for high magnitude climate changes. The Tejo basin showed a greater capacity to sustain water uses under climate change, except during 5-year droughts which could lead to severe water stress. However, the watermanagement system in this basin might need to be redesigned in order to cope with these stress periods. In short, the results indicate that there is a

Watermanagers, researchers, and other decision makers worldwide are faced with the challenge of increasing food production under population growth, drought, and rising water scarcity. Crop simulation models are valuable tools in this effort, and, importantly, provide a means of quantifying rapidly crop yield response to water, climate, and field management practices. Here, we introduce a new open-source crop modelling tool called AquaCrop-OS (Foster et al., 2017), which extends the functionality of the globally used FAO AquaCrop model. Through case studies focused on groundwater-fed irrigation in the High Plains and Central Valley of California in the United States, we demonstrate how AquaCrop-OS can be used to understand the local biophysical, behavioural, and institutional drivers of water risks in agricultural production. Furthermore, we also illustrate how AquaCrop-OS can be combined effectively with hydrologic and economic models to support drought risk mitigation and decision-making around waterresourcemanagement at a range of spatial and temporal scales, and highlight future plans for model development and training. T. Foster, et al. (2017) AquaCrop-OS: An open source version of FAO's crop water productivity model. Agricultural WaterManagement. 181: 18-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.11.015.

Full Text Available The current debate on decentralisation offers a polarised view on the dynamic power relations involved in waterresourcesmanagement. Drawing New Institutionalism as applied in the social and ecological sciences, the paper argues that decentralisation represents a complex adaptive process that involves a combination of natural and a political endeavour by actors and agents to draw on existing structures to negotiate and renegotiate the existing unequal power relations to (mismanage water. Examining a Village in the Indian Himalayas as a case study, the paper demonstrates the significance of New Institutionalism for a comprehensive understanding of the decentralisation as a process, with an intention to identify the opportunities and barriers presented by institutional factors on waterresourcesmanagement. The paper reveals the contemporary top-down decentralised reforms though has helped actors to voice their concern and empowered the agents to remain adaptive, these have not ensured resource use efficiency, addressed poverty and promoted greater participation of the actors. Facilitating these will require a strengthening the role of statutory public organisations to regulate water distribution, build capacity of actors and offer diverse forums to facilitate informed water-related decisions for a sustainable future.

Water is key to sustainable development especially in semi-arid regions in which the main source of water provision is groundwater. Water has value from a social, economic and environmental perspective and is required to be managed within a sound, integrated socio-economic and environmental framework. Mashhad, the second big city in Iran, has been faced with rapid growth rates of population and economic activities. The groundwater in Mashhad basin has been overexploited to meet the increasing trend of water demand during the past 20 years. Consequently, the region has faced with water scarcity and water quality problems which originates from inefficient use and poor management. To tackle the water issue on a durable basis, within the economic, ecological, and political constraints (i.e. the integrated waterresourcesmanagement, IWRM concept), a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), named as Mashhad Wise Water Forum (MWWF), has been established in 2013 that encompasses contribution of experts from academia, industry, and governmental policy-makers. The MWWF considers the UN-Water IWRM spiral conceptual model (which contains four stages: Recognizing and identifying; Conceptualizing; Coordinating and planning; Implementing, Monitoring and Evaluating) by implicating participatory watermanagement (water users' involvement) methods in Mashhad basin. Furthermore, the MWWF has planned to look at all dimensions of water crisis (i.e. physical, economic, policy and institutional) particularly institutional dimension by gathering all stockholders, beneficiaries and experts in different parts of water policy making in Mashhad basin. The MWWF vision for Mashhad basin is achieving to sustainable equilibrium of waterresources and consumptions in the basin by the prospect to 2040 year. So far, the MWWF has tried to understand and deal with regional diversity in legal systems as well as conflicts between private interests and public welfare in water allocation and management. At

Full Text Available In this article, we analyze how successful the implementation of Integrated WaterResourceManagement (IWRM in the Ebro river catchment (in Spain has been. Our main aim is to show some gaps between theory and practice. This implies analyzing the political dimensions of governance and their change and reflecting on the interface between governance and technical knowledge about water. We highlight problems, such as the lack of institutional coordination, blind spots in technical information and path dependences. Actual watermanagement has led to plans for further irrigation even though water availability is, and is expected to continue, shrinking due to climate change and other local factors. To overcome these mismatches, we propose further synchronization, innovative ways of public participation and knowledge sharing between institutions and researchers. As a showcase, we portray a practical real example of a desirable institutional arrangement in one sub-catchment.

Full Text Available Alpine regions are particularly affected by seasonal variations in water demand and water availability. Especially the winter period is critical from an operational point of view, as being characterised by high water demands due to tourism and low water availability due to the temporal storage of precipitation as snow and ice. The clear definition of summer and winter periods is thus an essential prerequisite for waterresourcemanagement in alpine regions. This paper presents a GIS-based multi criteria method to determine the winter season. A snow cover duration dataset serves as basis for this analysis. Different water demand stakeholders, the alpine hydrology and the present day water supply infrastructure are taken into account. Technical snow-making and (winter tourism were identified as the two major seasonal water demand stakeholders in the study area, which is the Kitzbueheler region in the Austrian Alps. Based upon different geographical datasets winter was defined as the period from December to March, and summer as the period from April to November. By determining potential regional water balance deficits or surpluses in the present day situation and in future, important management decisions such as water storage and allocation can be made and transposed to the local level.

Stakeholder participation is becoming increasingly important in waterresourcesmanagement. In participatory processes, stakeholders contribute by putting forward their own perspective, and they benefit by enhancing their understanding of the factors involved in decision making. A diversity of modeling tools can be used to facilitate participatory processes. Bayesian networks are well suited to this task for a variety of reasons, including their ability to structure discussions and visual app...

Across the southern Canadian Prairies, annual precipitation is relatively low (200-400 mm) and periodic water deficits limit economic and environmental productivity. Rapid population growth, economic development and climate change have exposed this region to increasing vulnerability to hydrologic drought. There is high demand for surface water, streamflow from the Rocky Mountains in particular. This paper describes the application of dendrohydrology to waterresourcemanagement in this region. Four projects were initiated by the sponsoring organizations: a private utility, an urban municipality and two federal government agencies. The fact that government and industry would initiate and fund tree-ring research indicates that practitioners recognize paleohydrology as a legitimate source of technical support for waterresource planning and management. The major advantage of tree-rings as a proxy of annual and seasonal streamflow is that the reconstructions exceed the length of gauge records by at least several centuries. The extent of our network of 180 tree-ring chronologies, spanning AD 549-2013 and ∼20° of latitude, with a high density of sites in the headwaters of the major river basins, enables us to construct large ensembles of tree-ring reconstructions as a means of expressing uncertainty in the inference of streamflow from tree rings. We characterize paleo-droughts in terms of modern analogues, translating the tree-ring reconstructions from a paleo-time scale to the time frame in which engineers and planners operate. Waterresourcemanagers and policy analysts have used our paleo-drought scenarios in their various forms to inform and assist drought preparedness planning, a re-evaluation of surface water apportionment policy and an assessment of the reliability of urban water supply systems.

Long-term waterresourcemanagement requires the capacity to evaluate alternative management options in the face of various sources of uncertainty in the future conditions of waterresource systems. This study proposes a generic framework for determining the relative change in probabilistic characteristics of system performance as a result of changing water availability, policy options and irrigation expansion. These probabilistic characteristics can be considered to represent the risk of failure in the system performance due to the uncertainty in future conditions. Quantifying the relative change in the performance risk can provide a basis for understanding the effects of multiple changing conditions on the system behavior. This framework was applied to the waterresource system of the Saskatchewan River Basin (SaskRB) in Saskatchewan, Canada. A "bottom-up" flow reconstruction algorithm was used to generate multiple realizations for water availability within a feasible range of change in streamflow characteristics. Consistent with observed data and projected change in streamflow characteristics, the historical streamflow was perturbed to stochastically generate feasible future flow sequences, based on various combinations of changing annual flow volume and timing of the annual peak. In addition, five alternative policy options, with and without potential irrigation expansion, were considered. All configurations of water availability, policy decisions and irrigation expansion options were fed into a hydro-economic waterresource system model to obtain empirical probability distributions for system performance - here overall and sectorial net benefits - under the considered changes. Results show that no one specific policy can provide the optimal option for waterresourcemanagement under all flow conditions. In addition, it was found that the joint impacts of changing water availability, policy, and irrigation expansion on system performance are complex and

Full Text Available Since the era of great water engineering works in South Africa, there has been a major shift in the thinking and approach to waterresourcesmanagement. Previous focus on water supply has been replaced by demand management initiatives...

Full Text Available Equitable redistribution of resources is an emergent phenomenon in democratizing countries, and attempts are often characterized by decentralized decision making within a framework of multistakeholder negotiations. South Africa offers a unique opportunity to explore the manifestations of these relationships, particularly through Integrated WaterResourcesManagement and its National Water Act of 1998. The Integrated WaterResourcesManagement framework provides for collaborative strategic planning, shared visioning, consideration to waterresource protection, attention to the regulation of use, operational planning, and implementation of management plans. Water users, with different stakes and views of how the resource should be managed, are expected to arrive at a single strategic plan for a specific hydrological region. Clearly this complex planning situation creates a need for tools that assist in producing a measure of convergence in thinking and enough of a shared rationale to allow stakeholder participation to produce an integrated management outcome. Several such tools are available in the overall catchment management strategy, but these would benefit from clearer understanding of the positions from which different stakeholders are operating and a way of knowing whether these positions are aligning. In this paper challenges posed by differences in meaning and understanding amongst stakeholders are examined against the need to engage stakeholders in waterresourcesmanagement. We deliberate on the prospects of employing mental model methodologies within the context of the strategic management framework for watermanagement described.

This paper compares waterresource policies and management practices in China and Denmark. It takes two vulnerable water ecosystems as case studies: Baiyangdian wetland in China and Mariager fjord in Denmark. Based on the theories of the commons, this article explores the similarities...... and differences between the two ecosystems in terms of ecosystem characteristics, historical and cultural backgrounds of these societies, the technologies affecting the ecosystems and also how the ecosystems have been seen at different times as well as the existence of property rights through time. Both water...... due to the complicated administrative structure in China and clearer goals and better resources in Denmark. Denmark has also accomplished a large degree of environmental policy integration (EPI), which is not the case in China. But China has recently put environmental concerns high on the agenda...

This study presents a basin-scale integrative hydrological, ecological, and economic (HEE) modeling system, aimed at evaluating the impact of resourcesmanagement, especially agricultural waterresourcesmanagement, on the sustainability of regional waterresources. The hydrological model in the modeling system was adapted from SWAT, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool, to simulate the water balance in terms of soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and streamflow. An ecologi-cal model was integrated into the hydrological model to compute the ecosystem production of biomass production and yield for different land use types. The economic model estimated the monetary values of crop production and water productivity over irrigated areas. The modeling system was primarily integrated and run on a Windows platform and was able to produce simulation results at daily time steps with a spatial resolution of hydrological response unit (HRU). The modeling system was then calibrated over the period from 1983 to 1991 for the upper and middle parts of the Yellow River basin, China.Calibration results showed that the efficiencies of the modeling system in simulating monthly streamflow over 5hydrological stations were from 0.54 to 0.68 with an average of 0.64, indicating an acceptable calibration.Preliminary simulation results from 1986 to 1995 revealed that water use in the study region has largely reduced the streamflow in many parts of the area except for that in the riverhead. Spatial distribution of biomass production, and crop yield showed a strong impact of irrigation on agricultural production. Water productivity over irrigated cropland ranged from 1 to 1640 USD/(ha.mm 1), indicat-ing a wide variation of the production conditions within the study region and a great potential in promoting water use efficiency in low water productivity areas. Generally,simulation results from this study indicated that the modeling system was capable of tracking the temporal and spatial

In the Southern African Development Community region, Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) principles and tools are being implemented through the existing regional framework for waterresources development and management. The IWRM approach is applied at river basin level seeking a balance between the economic efficiency, social equity and environmental sustainability in waterresourcesmanagement and development. This paper uses composite indexes to analyze the performance of River Basin Organizations (RBOs) as key implementing agents of the IWRM framework. The assessment focuses on three RBOs that fall under the Regional Water Administration for Southern Mozambique (ARA-Sul) jurisdiction, namely: Umbeluzi, Incomati and Limpopo River Basin Management Units. The analysis focus on the computation of a set of multidimensional key performance indicators developed by Hooper (2010) but adapted to the Mozambican context. This research used 24 out of 115 proposed universal key performance indicators. The indicators for this case study were selected based on their suitability to evaluate performance in line with the legal and institutional framework context that guides the operations of RBOs in Mozambique. Finally these indicators were integrated in a composite index, using an additive and multiplicative aggregation method coupled with the Analytic Hierarchy Process technique employed to differentiate the relative importance of the various indicators considered. The results demonstrate the potential usefulness of the methodology developed to analyze the RBOs performance and proved useful in identifying the main performance areas in need of improvement for better implementation of IWRM at river basin level in Mozambique. This information should support both the IWRM framework adaptation to local context and the implementation at river basin level in order to improve water governance.

Integrated surface water-groundwater modeling can provide a comprehensive and coherent understanding on basin-scale water cycle, but its high computational cost has impeded its application in real-world management. This study developed a new surrogate-based approach, SOIM (Surrogate-based Optimization for Integrated surface water-groundwater Modeling), to incorporate the integrated modeling into watermanagement optimization. Its applicability and advantages were evaluated and validated through an optimization research on the conjunctive use of surface water (SW) and groundwater (GW) for irrigation in a semiarid region in northwest China. GSFLOW, an integrated SW-GW model developed by USGS, was employed. The study results show that, due to the strong and complicated SW-GW interactions, basin-scale water saving could be achieved by spatially optimizing the ratios of groundwater use in different irrigation districts. The water-saving potential essentially stems from the reduction of nonbeneficial evapotranspiration from the aqueduct system and shallow groundwater, and its magnitude largely depends on both watermanagement schemes and hydrological conditions. Important implications for waterresourcesmanagement in general include: first, environmental flow regulation needs to take into account interannual variation of hydrological conditions, as well as spatial complexity of SW-GW interactions; and second, to resolve water use conflicts between upper stream and lower stream, a system approach is highly desired to reflect ecological, economic, and social concerns in watermanagement decisions. Overall, this study highlights that surrogate-based approaches like SOIM represent a promising solution to filling the gap between complex environmental modeling and real-world management decision-making.

Water cycle extremes such as droughts and floods present a challenge for watermanagers and for policy makers responsible for the administration of water supplies in agricultural regions. In addition to the inherent uncertainties associated with forecasting extreme weather events, water planners need to anticipate water demands and water user behavior in a typical circumstances. This requires the use decision support systems capable of simulating agricultural water demand with the latest available data. Unfortunately, managers from local and regional agencies often use different datasets of variable quality, which complicates coordinated action. In previous work we have demonstrated novel methodologies to use satellite-based observational technologies, in conjunction with hydro-economic models and state of the art data assimilation methods, to enable robust regional assessment and prediction of drought impacts on agricultural production, waterresources, and land allocation. These methods create an opportunity for new, cost-effective analysis tools to support policy and decision-making over large spatial extents. The methods can be driven with information from existing satellite-derived operational products, such as the Satellite Irrigation Management Support system (SIMS) operational over California, the Cropland Data Layer (CDL), and using a modified light-use efficiency algorithm to retrieve crop yield from the synergistic use of MODIS and Landsat imagery. Here we present an integration of this modeling framework in a client-server architecture based on the Hydra platform. Assimilation and processing of resource intensive remote sensing data, as well as hydrologic and other ancillary information occur on the server side. This information is processed and summarized as attributes in water demand nodes that are part of a vector description of the water distribution network. With this architecture, our decision support system becomes a light weight 'app' that

Water cycle extremes such as droughts and floods present a challenge for watermanagers and for policy makers responsible for the administration of water supplies in agricultural regions. In addition to the inherent uncertainties associated with forecasting extreme weather events, water planners need to anticipate water demands and water user behavior in atypical circumstances. This requires the use decision support systems capable of simulating agricultural water demand with the latest available data. Unfortunately, managers from local and regional agencies often use different datasets of variable quality, which complicates coordinated action. In previous work we have demonstrated novel methodologies to use satellite-based observational technologies, in conjunction with hydro-economic models and state of the art data assimilation methods, to enable robust regional assessment and prediction of drought impacts on agricultural production, waterresources, and land allocation. These methods create an opportunity for new, cost-effective analysis tools to support policy and decision-making over large spatial extents. The methods can be driven with information from existing satellite-derived operational products, such as the Satellite Irrigation Management Support system (SIMS) operational over California, the Cropland Data Layer (CDL), and using a modified light-use efficiency algorithm to retrieve crop yield from the synergistic use of MODIS and Landsat imagery. Here we present an integration of this modeling framework in a client-server architecture based on the Hydra platform. Assimilation and processing of resource intensive remote sensing data, as well as hydrologic and other ancillary information occur on the server side. This information is processed and summarized as attributes in water demand nodes that are part of a vector description of the water distribution network. With this architecture, our decision support system becomes a light weight `app` that

The three years SEE HYDROPOWER project started on June 2009, financed by the South-East Transnational Cooperation Programme (EU), aims to a sustainable exploitation of water concerning hydropower production in SEE countries, looking up to renewable energy sources development, preserving environmental quality and preventing flood risk. Hydropower is the most important renewable resource for energy production in the SEE countries but creates ecological impacts on a local scale. If on one hand, hydroelectric production has to be maintained and likely increased following the demand trend and RES-e Directive, on the other hand, hydropower utilisation often involves severe hydrological changes, damages the connectivity of water bodies and injures river ecosystems. The project gives a strong contribution to the integration between the Water Frame and the RES-e Directives in the involved countries. The SEE HYDROPOWER project promotes the optimal use of water, as multiple natural resources, in order to face the increasing regional electrical-energy demand. Furthermore, SEE HYDROPOWER defines specific needs and test methodologies & tools, in order to help public bodies to take decisions about planning and management of water and hydropower concessions, considering all multi-purposes uses, taking into account the environmental sustainability of natural resources and flooding risks. Investigations is carried on to define common strategies & methods for preserving river with particular concerns to aquatic ecosystems, considering the required Minimum Environmental Flow, macro-habitat quality, migratory fishes and related environmental issues. Other problem addressed by the Project is the contrast between Public Administration and Environmental associations on one side and the Hydropower producers on the other side, for the exploitation of water bodies. Competition between water users (for drinking, irrigation, industrial processes, power generation, etc.) is becoming a serious

Full Text Available Canadian decision-makers are encountering escalating socio-ecological pressures to introduce a national water strategy. Canada lags behind other countries such as Brazil which has had a comprehensive, participatory, watershed-based national strategy for over a decade. Similar to Canada, Brazil is a complex, federal, resource-based economy. These two states are world leaders in terms of possessing the vast quantities of the world’s fresh water supplies and in hydro-electric power production. In both cases, however, water abundance is predominantly concentrated in their northern territories with low population density, whereas in other geographical regions, the water demand associated with high population density lead to drought, shortages and social and economic inequalities. Despite these similarities, there are a number of differences particularly with respect to socio-economic and political structures. An examination ofthe Brazilian national water strategy offers some explanations as to why that federation has been able to develop innovative legislation as an important first step towards water security – a step that Canadahas yet to take. It also offers some very useful examples and lessons about how a federal state such as Canada might introduce and implement its own integrative national water strategy.

The most difficult waterresourcesmanagement challenge in the Ganges Basin is the imbalance between water demand and seasonal availability. More than 80 % of the annual flow in the Ganges River occurs during the 4-month monsoon, resulting in widespread flooding. During the rest of the year, irrigation, navigation, and ecosystems suffer because of water scarcity. Storage of monsoonal flow for utilization during the dry season is one approach to mitigating these problems. Three conjunctive use management strategies involving subsurface water storage are evaluated in this study: Ganges Water Machine (GWM), Pumping Along Canals (PAC), and Distributed Pumping and Recharge (DPR). Numerical models are used to determine the efficacy of these strategies. Results for the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh (UP) indicate that these strategies create seasonal subsurface storage from 6 to 37 % of the yearly average monsoonal flow in the Ganges exiting UP over the considered range of conditions. This has clear implications for flood reduction, and each strategy has the potential to provide irrigation water and to reduce soil waterlogging. However, GWM and PAC require significant public investment in infrastructure and management, as well as major shifts in existing water use practices; these also involve spatially-concentrated pumping, which may induce land subsidence. DPR also requires investment and management, but the distributed pumping is less costly and can be more easily implemented via adaptation of existing water use practices in the basin.

Due to the effects of climate change and the increasing demand on water, sustainable development in term of waterresourcesmanagement has become a major challenge. In this context, the application of simulation models is useful to duel with the uncertainty and complexity of water system by providing stakeholders with the best solution. This paper outlines an integrated management planning network is developed based on Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) to evaluate current and future watermanagement system of Langat River Basin, Malaysia under various scenarios. The WEAP model is known as an integrated decision support system investigate major stresses on demand and supply in terms of water availability in catchment scale. In fact, WEAP is applicable to simulate complex systems including various sectors within a single catchment or transboundary river system. To construct the model, by taking account of the Langat catchment and the corresponding demand points, we defined the hydrological model into 10 sub-hydrological catchments and 17 demand points included the export of treated water to the major cities outside the catchment. The model is calibrated and verified by several quantitative statistics (coefficient of determination, R2; Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, NSE and Percent bias, PBIAS). The trend of supply and demand in the catchment is evaluated under three scenarios to 2050, 1: Population growth rate, 2: Demand side management (DSM) and 3: Combination of DSM and reduce non-revenue water (NRW). Results show that by reducing NRW and proper DSM, unmet demand able to reduce significantly.

Full Text Available Kenyan river basin governance underwent a pioneering reform in the Water Act of 2002, which established new community water-management institutions. This article focuses on community water projects in the Likii WaterResource Users Association in the Upper Ewaso Ng’iro River basin on Mount Kenya, and the extent to which their features are consistent with Ostrom’s design principles of natural resourcemanagement. Although the projects have developed solid institutional structures, pressures such as hydroclimatic change, population growth, and water inequality challenge their ability to manage their waterresources. Institutional homogeneity across the different water projects and congruence with the design principles is not necessarily a positive factor. Strong differences in household water flows within and among the projects point to the disconnection between apparently successful institutions and their objectives, such as fair and equitable water allocation.

Changes in climate, growth in population and economy have increased the reliance on groundwater to augment supplies of surface water across the world, and especially the Western United States. Martis Valley, a high altitude, snow dominated watershed in the Sierra Nevada, California has both surface (river/reservoir) and groundwater resources that are utilized to meet demands within the valley. The recent drought and changing precipitation type (less snow, more rain) has stressed the regional surface water supply and has increased the reliance on groundwater pumping. The objective of this paper is to quantify how changes in climate and depletion of snow storage result in decreased groundwater recharge and increased groundwater use, and to assess if increased surface water storage can mitigate impacts to groundwater under historic and future climate conditions. These objectives require knowledge on the spatiotemporal distribution of groundwater recharge, discharge, and surface and groundwater interactions. We use a high resolution, physically-based integrated surface and groundwater model, GSFLOW, to identify key mechanisms that explain recent hydrologic changes in the region. The model was calibrated using a multi-criteria approach to various historical observed hydrologic fluxes (streamflow and groundwater pumping) and states (lake stage, groundwater head, snow cover area). Observations show that while groundwater use in the basin has increased significantly since the 1980's, it still remains a relatively minor component of annual consumptive water use. Model simulations suggest that changes from snow to rain will lead to increases in Hortonian and Dunnian runoff, and decreases in groundwater recharge and discharge to streams, which could have a greater impact on groundwater resources than increased pumping. These findings highlight the necessity of an integrated approach for evaluating natural and anthropogenic impacts on surface and groundwater resources.

Full Text Available This study designed to analyze and evaluate the results of trend scenarios of the strategy management of waterresources used in the valley of Oued-Souf, who led the region to a truly dramatic situation and almost desperate: rise of groundwater and its adverse consequences. In terms of this work, we seek a model (plan for the development of these resources according to criteria of sustainability, and will take into account socio-economic and ecosystem aspect. That by adaptation and implementation of integrated management of waterresources (IMWR in this unit of waterresources, to meet the needs of decision support in watermanagement, so as to guide and mobilize progressive human resources, information, financial and material, as well as various private and public sectors towards finding concrete and measurable results of water and ecosystems.

Full Text Available This study designed to analyze and evaluate the results of trend scenarios of the strategy management of waterresources used in the valley of Oued-Souf, who led the region to a truly dramatic situation and almost desperate: rise of groundwater and its adverse consequences. In terms of this work, we seek a model (plan for the development of these resources according to criteria of sustainability, and will take into account socio-economic and ecosystem aspect. That by adaptation and implementation of integrated management of waterresources (IMWR in this unit of waterresources, to meet the needs of decision support in watermanagement, so as to guide and mobilize progressive human resources, information, financial and material, as well as various private and public sectors towards finding concrete and measurable results of water and ecosystems.

Full Text Available Sustainable watermanagement plays an important role in the frame of the multidisciplinary research activities aiming to combat or to mitigate the desertification processes. The study activities have been carried out by RIADE Research Project (Integrated Research for Applying new technologies and processes for combating Desertification,www.riade.net. RIADE was co-financed by MIUR within the National Operative Programme 2000-2006. The primary objective was to explore and to develop models and strategies for innovative and sustainable solutions of waterresourcesmanagement, adopting a multidisciplinary approach, at the catchment and hydrogeological basin scale in a Mediterranean context, using a case history of a pilot area in NW Sardinia (Italy. The high concentration of population in this coastal zone and the intense agricultural activity have determined a relevant increase of water demand. This demand is generally satisfied by surface water, but, in some peculiar dry periods, it exceeds the available quantities. In these critical periods, groundwater are the only alternative source constituting a strategic waterresource. The groundwater chemical properties are then correlated with the effects of the anthropogenic pressures. The used approach shows the application of groundwater protection criteria, in accordance with EU policies, and it was aimed to develop a methodological tool which can be applied to different scenarios.

The Integrated WaterResourcesManagement (IWRM) paradigm has become an important framework in development and management of waterresources. Many countries in the Southern Africa region have begun water sector reforms to align the sector with the IWRM concepts. In 2007 the Mozambican Government started to update the policy and the legal framework of the water sector to foster the application of IWRM concept as a basis for achieving sustainable development. However the steps towards the implementation of this national framework are still in preparation. This research aims to identify and establish a priority ranking of the fundamental factors likely to affect the outcome of the IWRM reforms in Mozambique. This study uses the hybrid multi-criteria decision method A’WOT, a methodology coined by Kurttila et al. (2000). This method relies on the combination of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) technique and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. Using this procedure it is possible to identify and rank the factors affecting the functioning of a system. The key factors affecting the implementation of the IWRM, analysed in this study, were identified through an expert group discussion. These factors have been grouped into different categories of SWOT. Subsequently, the AHP methodology was applied to obtain the relative importance of each factor captured in the SWOT analysis; to this end the authors interviewed a panel of waterresourcesmanagement experts and practitioners. As a result, of this study and the application of the A’WOT methodology, the research identified and ranked the fundamental factors for the success of the IWRM strategy in Mozambique. The results of this study suggest that in Mozambique a planning strategy for the implementation of the IWRM should be guided mainly by combination of interventions in factors falling under opportunity and weakness SWOT groups.

Interlinked crises of land degradation, food security, ecosystem decline, water quality and water flow depletion stand in the way of poverty reduction and sustainable development. These crises are made worse by increased fluctuations in climatic regimes. Single-purpose international conventions address these crises in a piecemeal, sectoral fashion and may not meet their objectives without greater attention to policy, legal, and institutional reforms related to: (i) balancing competing uses of land and waterresources within hydrologic units; (ii) adopting integrated approaches to management; and (iii) establishing effective governance institutions for adaptive management within transboundary basins. This paper describes this global challenge and argues that peace, stability and security are all at stake when integrated approaches are not used. The paper presents encouraging results from a decade of transboundary water projects supported by the Global Environment Facility in developing countries that test practical applications of processes for facilitating reforms related to land and water that are underpinned by science-based approaches. Case studies of using these participative processes are described that collectively assist in the transition to integrated management. A new imperative for incorporating interlinkages among food, water, and environment security at the basin level is identified.

The implementation of Catchment Management Agencies (CMAs) was supposed to be the cornerstone of the rescaling process of the South African water reform policy. Yet, less than 10 years after the adoption of the National Water Act, the process was suspended for 4 years and by 2012 only two CMAs had been established. Combining approaches in geography and political science, this paper investigates the reasons for the delays in CMAs' implementation in South Africa. It shows that the construction of interbasin transfers (IBTs) since the 1950s by the apartheid regime and nowadays the power struggles between CMAs and the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) are two of the main obstacles to the creation of CMAs planned by the 1998 National Water Act (NWA). Finally, the paper advocates taking the "hydrosocial cycle" as an analytical framework for designing new institutional arrangements that will include both rectifying the legacy of the past (the specific role of DWA) and acknowledging legitimate local interests.

Abstract The Mustang region of the Himalayas has unique geographical and climatic features. This region is characterized by a cold-arid climate with total annual precipitation of less than 300mm. Agriculture and livestock grazing lands are the major ecosystem services, which support directly the livelihoods of local populations yet, are strongly determined by low water availability. As a result, optimizing waterresourcesmanagement is paramount to support local development, but this is severely complicated by the lack of information about water availability. This problem is further aggravated by increasing pressure on the social, physical and climatic environments. In order to support the management of scarce water in irrigation and domestic uses, stream flow and precipitation monitoring networks were established using a participatory approach under the principle of citizen science. Data collection, and the following interpretation and application of the co-generated knowledge relies on local users, whereas the establishment of the system, knowledge co-generation, and development of application tools particularly is part of a collaboration of members of the general public with professional scientists. We show how the resulting data enable local users to quantify the water balance in the area and reduce the uncertainty associated to data-scarcity, which leads to the generation of useable information about water availability for irrigation, livestock grazing, and domestic demand. We contrast the current scenario of water use, under different conditions of natural variability and environmental change, with an optimized watermanagement strategy generated and agreed with local users. This approach contributes to an optimal use of water, to an improvement in ecosystem services supporting to livelihood development and economic progress of local populations. Key words: ecosystem services, climate change, water balance, knowledge generation, irrigation

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 90 % of wetlands provide ecosystem services to societies, especially for agriculture and fishing. However, tropical rivers are increasingly regulated to provide hydroelectricity and irrigated agriculture. Modifications of flows create new hydrological conditions that affect floodplains ecology and peoples' livelihoods. In the Senegal river valley, large dams were built during the 1980's to secure waterresources after a decade of water scarcity in the 1970's: Manantali in the upper basin with a reservoir of 12km3 and Diama close to estuary to avoid saltwater intrusion during dry season. Senegal river waterresources are known under the supervision of Senegal River Basin Development Organization (OMVS), which defines water allocation between different goals (electricity, irrigation, traditional activities). This study, based on the concept of socio-hydrology, analyses socio-ecological changes following thirty years of dam management. The work enlightens adaptation mechanisms of livelihoods from people living along the river floodplain and feedback on water ressources. The study uses a mixed method approach, combining hydrological analyses, literature review and data collection from surveys on stakeholders and key informants level in the middle Senegal valley. Our results suggest that in all the Senegal river valley, socio-ecological changes are driven by new hydrological conditions. If dam management benefit for peoples with electrification and development of an irrigated agriculture, it has also emphasized the floodplain degradation. Flooded area has decline and are more irregular, causing an erosion of floodplain supporting services (traditional activities as fishing, grazing and flood-recession agriculture). These conditions reduce peoples' livelihood possibilities and irrigation is the only regular activity. As a feedback, irrigated agriculture increases withdrawals in the river and, recently, in aquifers posing a new uncertainty on water

Managers of large river basins face conflicting needs for waterresources such as wildlife habitat, water supply, wastewater assimilative capacity, flood control, hydroelectricity, and recreation. The Savannah River Basin for example, has experienced three major droughts since 2000 that resulted in record low water levels in its reservoirs, impacting local economies for years. The Savannah River Basin’s coastal area contains municipal water intakes and the ecologically sensitive freshwater tidal marshes of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. The Port of Savannah is the fourth busiest in the United States, and modifications to the harbor have caused saltwater to migrate upstream, reducing the freshwater marsh’s acreage more than 50 percent since the 1970s. There is a planned deepening of the harbor that includes flow-alteration features to minimize further migration of salinity. The effectiveness of the flow-alteration features will only be known after they are constructed.

Based on the status quantity of waterresources in Xi′an region, a commentary on many math models is given for waterresources operation and management, and the visual model is provided to solve practical problems. In this model, the information for decision is visible in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and topological figures. With object orientation methods, the objects are described in proprieties,methods, relations and time periods. The simulation process of the model is developed with Delphi and MapInfo, and the real decision scheme could be examined and practice decision process can be simulated from which. Decision analysis conducted from visual conditions is believable. The exploration to visual model is a beginning of practice research, much more study of which still needs to do.

Presently, planning and assessment in maintenance, renewal and decision-making for watershed hydrology, waterresourcemanagement and water quality assessment are evolving toward complex, spatially explicit regional environmental assessments. These problems have to be addressed with object-oriented spatio-temporal data models that can restore, manage, query and visualize various historic and updated basic information concerning with watershed hydrology, waterresourcemanagement and water quality as well as compute and evaluate the watershed environmental conditions so as to provide online forecasting to police-makers and relevant authorities for supporting decision-making. The extensive data requirements and the difficult task of building input parameter files, however, has long been an obstacle to use of such complex models timely and effectively by resourcemanagers. Success depends on an integrated approach that brings together scientific, education and training advances made across many individual disciplines and modified to fit the needs of the individuals and groups who must write, implement, evaluate, and adjust their watershed management plans. The centre for Hydro-science Research, Nanjing University, in cooperation with the relevant watershed management authorities, has developed a WebGIS management platform to facilitate this complex process. Improve the management of watersheds over the Huaihe basin through the development, promotion and use of a web-based, user-friendly, geospatial watershed management data and decision support system (WMDDSS) involved many difficulties for the development of this complicated System. In terms of the spatial and temporal characteristics of historic and currently available information on meteorological, hydrological, geographical, environmental and other relevant disciplines, we designed an object-oriented spatiotemporal data model that combines spatial, attribute and temporal information to implement the management

A three-dimensional groundwater model was used to improve waterresourcemanagement for a study area in north-west Switzerland, where drinking-water production is close to former landfills and industrial areas. To avoid drinking-water contamination, artificial groundwater recharge with surface water is used to create a hydraulic barrier between the contaminated sites and drinking-water extraction wells. The model was used for simulating existing and proposed watermanagement strategies as a tool to ensure the utmost security for drinking water. A systematic evaluation of the flow direction between existing observation points using a developed three-point estimation method for a large number of scenarios was carried out. It is demonstrated that systematically applying the developed methodology helps to identify vulnerable locations which are sensitive to changing boundary conditions such as those arising from changes to artificial groundwater recharge rates. At these locations, additional investigations and protection are required. The presented integrated approach, using the groundwater flow direction between observation points, can be easily transferred to a variety of hydrological settings to systematically evaluate groundwater modelling scenarios.

The eastern Mediterranean faces a severe water crisis: water supply decreases due to climate change, while demand increases due to rapid population growth. The GLOWA Jordan River project generates science-based management strategies for maximizing water productivity under global climate change. We use a novel definition of water productivity as the full range of services provided by landscapes per unit blue (surface) and green (in plants and soil) water. Our combined results from climatological, ecological, economic and hydrological studies suggest that, in Israel, certain landscapes provide high returns as ecosystem services for little input of additional blue water. Specifically, cultural services such as recreation may by far exceed that of food production. Interestingly, some highly valued landscapes (e.g. rangeland) appear resistant to climate change, making them an ideal candidate for adaptive land management. Vice versa, expanding irrigated agriculture is unlikely to be sustainable under global climate change. We advocate the inclusion of a large range of ecosystem services into integrated land and waterresourcesmanagement. The focus on cultural services and integration of irrigation demand will lead to entirely different but productive water and land allocation schemes that may be suitable for withstanding the problems caused by climate change.

In many parts of the world groundwater is being depleting at an alarming rate. Where groundwater extraction is licenced, regulators often respond to resource depletion by reducing all individual licences by a fixed proportion. This approach can be effective in achieving a reduction in the volume of water extracted, but the approach is not efficient. In waterresourcemanagement the issue of the equity-efficiency trade-off has been explored in a number of contexts, but not in the context of allocation from a groundwater system. To contribute to this knowledge gap we conduct an empirical case study for Western Australia's most important groundwater system: the Gnangara Groundwater System (GGS). Resource depletion is a serious issue for the GGS, and substantial reductions in groundwater extraction are required to stabilise the system. Using an individual-based farm optimization model we study both the overall impact and the distributional impact of a fixed percentage water allocation cut to horticulture sector licence holders. The model is parameterised using water licence specific data on farm area and water allocation. The modelling shows that much of the impact of water allocation reductions can be mitigated through changing the cropping mix and the irrigation technology used. The modelling also shows that the scope for gains through the aggregation of holdings into larger farms is much greater than the potential losses due to water allocation reductions. The impact of water allocation cuts is also shown to impact large farms more than small farms. For example, the expected loss in net revenue per ha for a 10-ha farm is around three times the expected loss per ha for a 1-ha farm; and the expected loss per ha for a 25-ha farm is around five times the expected loss per ha for a 1-ha farm.

The main components of a decision support system (DSS) developed to support the management of the waterresource system of Athens are presented. The DSS includes information systems that perform data acquisition, management and visualisation, and models that perform simulation and optimisation of the hydrosystem. The models, which are the focus of the present work, are organised into two main modules. The first one is a stochastic hydrological simulator, which, based on the analysis of historical hydrological data, generates simulations and forecasts of the hydrosystem inputs. The second one allows the detailed study of the hydrosystem under alternative management policies implementing the parameterisation-simulation-optimisation methodology. The mathematical framework of this new methodology performs the allocation of the waterresources to the different system components, keeping the number of control variables small and thus reducing the computational effort, even for a complex hydrosystem like the one under study. Multiple, competitive targets and constraints with different priorities can be set, which are concerned among others, with the system reliability and risk, the overall average operational cost and the overall guaranteed yield of the system. The DSS is now in the final stage of its development and its results, some of which are summarised in the paper, have been utilised to support the new masterplan of the hydrosystem management.

Tarim River is one of the longest inland rivers in the world. It flows its water in the northern part of the Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang, North-west of China, which is a very hostile region due its climatic conditions and particularly due to low precipitation and very high evaporation rates. During the past five decades intensive exploitation of waterresources, mainly by agricultural activities, has changed the temporal and spatial distribution of them and caused serious environmental problems in the Tarim River Basin. The support measures for oasis management along the Tarim River under climatic and societal changes became the overarching goal of this research. The temperature has risen by nearly 1° C over the past 50 years in the Tarim River Basin so more water was available in the mountainous areas of Xinjiang, leading to an increasing trend of the headstream discharges of the Tarim Basin. Aksu, Hotan and Yarkant Rivers are three tributaries of the Tarim River, as well as its main water suppliers. However, under the condition of water increase with the volume of 25×108 m3 in headstreams in recent 10 years, the water to the mainstream has increased less than 108 m3 (in Alar hydrological station), which is less than 3% of the increased water volume of runoff. Moreover, the region is one of the biggest cotton and other cash crops producers in China. In addition, expansion of urban and, in particular, of irrigation areas have caused higher water consumption at different parts of the river, leading to severe ecological effects on rural areas, especially in the lower reaches. Moreover, it also highly affects groundwater level and quality. The aim of this research is to support decision makers, planners and engineers to find right measures in the area for the further development of the region, as well as adaptation to changing climate. Different scenarios for waterresourcemanagement, as well as water distribution and allocation in a more efficient and water

Decision making is a significant tool in waterresourcesmanagement applications. This technical note approaches a decision dilemma that has not yet been considered for the waterresourcesmanagement of a watershed. A common cost-benefit analysis approach, which is novel in the risk analysis of hydrologic/hydraulic applications, and a Bayesian decision analysis are applied to aid the decision making on whether or not to construct a water reservoir for irrigation purposes. The alternative option examined is a scaled parabolic fine variation in terms of over-pumping violations in contrast to common practices that usually consider short-term fines. The methodological steps are analytically presented associated with originally developed code. Such an application, and in such detail, represents new feedback. The results indicate that the probability uncertainty is the driving issue that determines the optimal decision with each methodology, and depending on the unknown probability handling, each methodology may lead to a different optimal decision. Thus, the proposed tool can help decision makers to examine and compare different scenarios using two different approaches before making a decision considering the cost of a hydrologic/hydraulic project and the varied economic charges that water table limit violations can cause inside an audit interval. In contrast to practices that assess the effect of each proposed action separately considering only current knowledge of the examined issue, this tool aids decision making by considering prior information and the sampling distribution of future successful audits.

The contribution of hydrological research in South Africa in quantifying green water flows for improved Integrated Land and WaterResourcesManagement is reviewed. Green water refers to water losses from land surfaces through transpiration (seen as a productive use) and evaporation from bare soil (seen as a non-productive use). In contrast, blue water flows refer to streamflow (surface water) and groundwater / aquifer recharge. Over the past 20 years, a number of methods have been used to quantify the green water and blue water flows. These include micrometeorological techniques (e.g. Bowen ratio energy balance, eddy covariance, surface renewal, scintillometry, lysimetry), field scale models (e.g. SWB, SWAP), catchment scale hydrological models (e.g. ACRU, SWAT) and more recently remote sensing based models (e.g. SEBAL, SEBS). The National Water Act of South Africa of 1998 requires that waterresources are managed, protected and used (developed, conserved and controlled) in an equitable way which is beneficial to the public. The quantification of green water flows in catchments under different land uses has been pivotal in (a) regulating streamflow reduction activities (e.g. forestry) and the management of alien invasive plants, (b) protecting riparian and wetland areas through the provision of an ecological reserve, (c) assessing and improving the water use efficiency of irrigated pastures, fruit tree orchards and vineyards, (d) quantifying the potential impact of future land uses like bio-fuels (e.g. Jatropha) on waterresources, (e) quantifying water losses from open water bodies, and (f) investigating "biological” mitigation measures to reduce the impact of polluted waterresources as a result of various industries (e.g. mining). This paper therefore captures the evolution of measurement techniques applied across South Africa, the impact these results have had on water use and water use efficiency and the extent to which it supported the National Water Act of

The water supply of Athens, Greece, is implemented through a complex waterresource system, extending over an area of around 4 000 km2 and including surface water and groundwater resources. It incorporates four reservoirs, 350 km of main aqueducts, 15 pumping stations, more than 100 boreholes and 5 small hydropower plants. The system is run by the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYDAP) Over more than 10 years we have developed, information technology tools such as GIS, database and decision support systems, to assist the management of the system. Among the software components, "Enhydris", a web application for the visualization and management of geographical and hydrometeorological data, and "Hydrognomon", a data analysis and processing tool, are now free software. Enhydris is entirely based on free software technologies such as Python, Django, PostgreSQL, and JQuery. We also created http://openmeteo.org/, a web site hosting our free software products as well as a free database system devoted to the dissemination of free data. In particular, "Enhydris" is used for the management of the hydrometeorological stations and the major hydraulic structures (aqueducts, reservoirs, boreholes, etc.), as well as for the retrieval of time series, online graphs etc. For the specific needs of EYDAP, additional GIS functionality was introduced for the display and monitoring of the water supply network. This functionality is also implemented as free software and can be reused in similar projects. Except for "Hydrognomon" and "Enhydris", we have developed a number of advanced modeling applications, which are also generic-purpose tools that have been used for a long time to provide decision support for the waterresource system of Athens. These are "Hydronomeas", which optimizes the operation of complex waterresource systems, based on a stochastic simulation framework, "Castalia", which implements the generation of synthetic time series, and "Hydrogeios", which employs

The use of entropy in hydrology and waterresources has been applied to various applications. As waterresource systems are inherently spatial and complex, a stochastic description of these systems is needed, and entropy theory enables development of such a description by providing determination of the least-biased probability distributions with limited knowledge and data. Entropy can also serve as a basis for risk and reliability analysis. The relative entropy has been variously interpreted as a measure freedom of choice, uncertainty and disorder, information content, missing information or information gain or loss. In the analysis of empirical data, entropy is another measure of dispersion, an alternative to the variance. Also, as an evaluation tool, the statistical entropy analysis (SEA) has been developed by previous workers to quantify the power of a process to concentrate chemical elements. Within this research programme the SEA is aimed to be extended for application to chemical compounds and tested for its deficits and potentials in systems where waterresources play an important role. The extended SEA (eSEA) will be developed first for the nitrogen balance in waste water treatment plants (WWTP). Later applications on the emission of substances to water bodies such as groundwater (e.g. leachate from landfills) will also be possible. By applying eSEA to the nitrogen balance in a WWTP, all possible nitrogen compounds, which may occur during the water treatment process, are taken into account and are quantified in their impact towards the environment and human health. It has been shown that entropy reducing processes are part of modern waste management. Generally, materials management should be performed in a way that significant entropy rise is avoided. The entropy metric might also be used to perform benchmarking on WWTPs. The result out of this management tool would be the determination of the efficiency of WWTPs. By improving and optimizing the efficiency

Water scarcity and water pollution are severe problems in the Northern part of China, strongly affecting socio-economic development and standards of living and environment. The Shandong province is specifically plagued by water scarcity. In the coastal catchments of the Shandong province the water scarcity is even increased due to saltwater intrusion, reducing the usability of waterresources available. The pressing water problems in the costal catchments in the Shandong province and resulting socio-economic troubles forced the Chinese authorities to implement a variety of measures to relieve water scarcity and abate saltwater intrusion. But not much has been achieved so far as the measures are not coordinated in their effects and cost-benefit relations have not been considered sufficiently. Such a situation calls for good, which means integrated, sustainable watermanagement. The assessment of this situation in the project "Flood Control and Groundwater Recharge in Coastal Catchments" financed by the German Ministry of Research and Education is presented. Further objectives and first ideas for an IWRM-concept are explained. These ideas are based on concepts developed in Germany in the context of the fulfilment of the European Water Framework Directive.

Jul 14, 2016 ... river basin managers in managing and planning of waterresources and facilities development. ... construction, maintenance and operation of projects for the control ... scope with occasional rocky outcrops in the north western ...

Full Text Available Water needs in the province of Bali from year to year increase along with the rise of population and tourism activities. A study conducted by the Ministry of Environment (2009 stated that Bali is already experiencing water deficit during the dry seasons since 1995 as many as 1.5 billion m3 / year. To overcome this water deficit issue, it will require researching on the potential waterresources in Bali. Along the Petanu River, there are 25 irrigation weirs on a 4475.5 ha of land. Research was carried out in in Saba village, Gianyar Regency, Bali, along The Petanu River up to its estuary. The data collected from the research included primary and secondary data, namely: water quality, water quantity (water volume in Petanu River estuary, precipitation, climate, and environmental conditions of the Petanu river. The data collected from the research site and the secondary data, the water quality was tested on the reseacrh site and in the laboratory before it was analyzed. The model used to detect water presence (the water system along the Petanu River up to its estuary was procesed using a software called RIBASIM (River Basin Simulation. The result showed that there is a potential water source (water volume on the estuary of the Petanu River estuary during the dry season as much as 6.16 million m3 and during the rainy season as much as 43.79 million m3. Water quality in terms of physics (smell, taste, temperature, color, turbidity and salinity, meet the quality standards of class IV (for irrigation. Based on the simulation results on the RIBASIM software, the waterresources in the Petanu River estuary can potentially be managed as irrigation water for horticulture agriculture along the coast of Saba. The potential water sources can be contained by building dams / reservoirs that are placed ± 300 m from the shoreline of Saba village in Gianyar regency. The watermanagement model for the water sources in Petanu River to support sustainable

Full Text Available The Atlantis WaterResourceManagement Scheme (AWRMS) located some 40 km north of Cape Town shows how insightful planning and management can expand the groundwater supply potential of a primary aquifer for bulk urban water supply. The AWRMS...

Being one of the essential elements of almost any waterresource system, reservoirs are indispensable in our struggle to harness, utilize and manage natural waterresources. Consequently, the derivation of appropriate reservoir operating strategies draws significant attention in water resou

A remote sensing based geo-informatics approach was developed to estimate waterresourcesmanagement (WRM) components across a large irrigation scheme in the Indus Basin of Pakistan. The approach provides a generalized framework for estimating a range of key watermanagement variables and provides a management tool for the sustainable operation of similar schemes globally. A focus on the use of satellite data allowed for the quantification of relationships across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Variables including actual and crop evapotranspiration, net and gross irrigation, net and gross groundwater use, groundwater recharge, net groundwater recharge, were estimated and then their interrelationships explored across the Hakra Canal command area. Spatially distributed remotely sensed estimates of actual evapotranspiration (ETa) rates were determined using the Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) model and evaluated against ground-based evaporation calculated from the advection-aridity method. Analysis of ETa simulations across two cropping season, referred to as Kharif and Rabi, yielded Pearson correlation (R) values of 0.69 and 0.84, Nash-Sutcliffe criterion (NSE) of 0.28 and 0.63, percentage bias of −3.85% and 10.6% and root mean squared error (RMSE) of 10.6 mm and 12.21 mm for each season, respectively. For the period of study between 2008 and 2014, it was estimated that an average of 0.63 mm day−1 water was supplied through canal irrigation against a crop water demand of 3.81 mm day−1. Approximately 1.86 mm day−1 groundwater abstraction was estimated in the region, which contributed to fulfil the gap between crop water demand and canal water supply. Importantly, the combined canal, groundwater and rainfall sources of water only met 70% of the crop water requirements. As such, the difference between recharge and discharge showed that groundwater depletion was around −115 mm year−1 during the six year study period. Analysis indicated that

The waterresources infrastructure of the Western US is designed to deliver reliable water supply to users and provide recreational opportunities for the public, as well as afford flood control for communities by buffering variability in precipitation and snow storage. Thus waterresourcemanagement is a balancing act of meeting multiple objectives while trying to anticipate and mitigate natural variability of water supply. Currently, the forecast guidance available to personnel managingresources in mountainous terrain is lacking in two ways: the spatial resolution is too coarse, and there is a gap in the intermediate time range (10-30 days). To address this need we examine the effectiveness of using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, a state of the art, regional, numerical weather prediction model, as a means to generate high-resolution weather guidance in the intermediate time range. This presentation will focus on a reanalysis and hindcasting case study of the extreme precipitation and flooding event in the Payette River Basin of Idaho during the period of June 2nd-4th, 2010. For the reanalysis exercise we use NCEP's Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) and the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) data sets as input boundary conditions to WRF. The model configuration includes a horizontal spatial resolution of 3km in the outer nest, and 1 km in the inner nest, with output temporal resolution of 3 hrs and 1 hr, respectively. The hindcast simulations, which are currently underway, will make use of the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reforecast (CFSRR) data. The current state of these runs will be discussed. Preparations for the second of two components in this project, weekly WRF forecasts during the intense portion of the water year, will be briefly described. These forecasts will use the NCEP Climate Forecast System version 2 (CFSv2) operational forecast data as boundary conditions to provide forecast guidance geared towards waterresource

Groundwater modeling is undergoing a change from traditional stand-alone studies toward being an integrated part of holistic waterresourcesmanagement procedures. This is illustrated by the development in Denmark, where comprehensive national databases for geologic borehole data, groundwater-related geophysical data, geologic models, as well as a national groundwater-surface water model have been established and integrated to support watermanagement. This has enhanced the benefits of using groundwater models. Based on insight gained from this Danish experience, a scientifically realistic scenario for the use of groundwater modeling in 2020 has been developed, in which groundwater models will be a part of sophisticated databases and modeling systems. The databases and numerical models will be seamlessly integrated, and the tasks of monitoring and modeling will be merged. Numerical models for atmospheric, surface water, and groundwater processes will be coupled in one integrated modeling system that can operate at a wide range of spatial scales. Furthermore, the management systems will be constructed with a focus on building credibility of model and data use among all stakeholders and on facilitating a learning process whereby data and models, as well as stakeholders' understanding of the system, are updated to currently available information. The key scientific challenges for achieving this are (1) developing new methodologies for integration of statistical and qualitative uncertainty; (2) mapping geological heterogeneity and developing scaling methodologies; (3) developing coupled model codes; and (4) developing integrated information systems, including quality assurance and uncertainty information that facilitate active stakeholder involvement and learning.

We have chosen to present the topic "Water", by illustrating problems that will give better opportunities for interdisciplinary work between Natural Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology) teachers at first, but also English teachers and maybe others. Water is considered in general, in all its shapes and states. The question is not only about drinking water, but we would like to demonstrate that water can both be a fragile and short-lived resource in some ways, and an unlimited energy resource in others. Water exists on Earth in three states. It participates in a large number of chemical and physical processes (dissolution, dilution, biogeochemical cycles, repartition of heat in the oceans and the atmosphere, etc.), helping to maintain the homeostasis of the entire planet. It is linked to living beings, for which water is the major compound. The living beings essentially organized themselves into or around water, and this fact is also valid for human kind (energy, drinking, trade…). Water can also be a destroying agent for living beings (tsunamis, mud flows, collapse of electrical dams, pollution...) and for the solid earth (erosion, dissolution, fusion). I) Water, an essential resource for the human kind After having highlighted the disparities and geopolitical problems, the pupils will study the chemistry of water with its components and their origins (isotopes, water trip). Then the ways to make it drinkable will be presented (filtration, decantation, iceberg carrying…) II) From the origin of water... We could manage an activity where different groups put several hypotheses to the test, with the goal to understand the origin(s?) of water on Earth. Example: Isotopic signature of water showing its extraterrestrial origin.. Once done, we'll try to determine the origin of drinking water, as a fossil resource. Another use of isotopes will allow them to evaluate the drinking water age, to realize how precious it can be. III) Water as a sustainable energy

Full Text Available Problem statement: Most of the projected increase in global population will take place in third world countries that already suffer from water, food, and health problems. Irrigation in developing countries tends to be stereotyped as equity reducing, in competition with other uses for scarce waterresources. Agricultural intensification through the practice of irrigation as a strategy for poverty reduction is examined. Water users were surveyed in order to explore their perception about the factors influencing the optimizing water consumption in agricultural sectors in Iran. This study looks into water-poverty interfaces as well as into approaches to and tools of, managingwater in such a manner that water sector activities can contribute to alleviation of poverty. In addition, this study aims to empower water users with information on agricultural waste-water. Approach: The methodology used in this study involved a combination of descriptive and quantitative research. The total population was 350 producers in six provinces in Iran. Results: Based on the perception of the respondents and ordinal factor analysis, the factors were categorized into four groups namely technical and practical, recognition and managingwater equipment and constructive ordered by the magnitude of their impact. The total variance explained by these 4 factors is 54.27% as effective mechanisms in optimizing agricultural waterresourcesmanagement. Structural equation model is expected to be useful for designing targeted optimizing agricultural waterresourcesmanagement and poverty alleviation strategies that also enhance agricultural-productivity growth. Conclusion/Recommendations: Where there is equity in resource distribution, the impact of improved watermanagement on agricultural productivity growth has been more poverty reducing. Using water better means improving the productivity of agricultural water in both irrigated and rainfed systems, through multiple

The Idaho Water Rental Pilot Project was implemented as a part of the Non-Treaty Storage Fish and Wildlife Agreement (NTSA) between Bonneville Power Administration and the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority. The goal of the project is to improve juvenile and adult salmon and steelhead passage in the lower Snake River with the use of rented water for flow augmentation. The primary purpose of this project is to summarize existing resource information and provide recommendations to protect or enhance resident fish and wildlife resources in Idaho with actions achieving flow augmentation for anadromous fish. Potential impacts of an annual flow augmentation program on Idaho reservoirs and streams are modeled. Potential sources of water for flow augmentation and operational or institutional constraints to the use of that water are identified. This report does not advocate flow augmentation as the preferred long-term recovery action for salmon. The state of Idaho strongly believes that annual drawdown of the four lower Snake reservoirs is critical to the long-term enhancement and recovery of salmon (Andrus 1990). Existing water level management includes balancing the needs of hydropower production, irrigated agriculture, municipalities and industries with fish, wildlife and recreation. Reservoir minimum pool maintenance, water quality and instream flows are issues of public concern that will be directly affected by the timing and quantity of water rental releases for salmon flow augmentation, The potential of renting water from Idaho rental pools for salmon flow augmentation is complicated by institutional impediments, competition from other water users, and dry year shortages. Water rental will contribute to a reduction in carryover storage in a series of dry years when salmon flow augmentation is most critical. Such a reduction in carryover can have negative impacts on reservoir fisheries by eliminating shoreline spawning beds, reducing available fish habitat

This article aims to conduct an analysis of the correlation between the management and use of waterresources with the expansion of agribusiness and its reflections in environmental and human contamination, pointing toward challenges for SUS in the area of monitoring pesticides in water for human consumption. It is qualitative study with an adopted methodological framework of the case study, applied in an area of agribusiness expansion in the semi-arid region of the state of Ceará. The results demonstrate that there exists an unequal relationship in the management and use of water, in which agribusiness in Ceará is prioritized for access to water at the expense of the great majority of the rural population. As a result, pesticide contamination of surface and ground water brings challenges to surveillance of the control of pesticides in water for human consumption. In this sense, we present alternatives to develop health services with more effective actions in surveillance of health in general, and of Vigiagua in particular, such as: overcoming the fragmentation of vision and intervention regarding health problems; human exposure to multiple pesticides; the lack of laboratories and trained professionals; and enlarging the dissemination of information to the users of water.

-diffusion equation describing the fate and transport of contaminants introduced in a 3D turbulent flow field to the partial differential equation describing the fate and transport of contaminants in 3D transient groundwater flow systems. The model has been further developed to include the effects of density variations on surface water and groundwater flow, while the already built-in solute transport capabilities are used to simulate salinity interactions. The refined model is based on the finite volume method using a cell-centred structured grid, providing thus flexibility and accuracy in simulating irregular boundary geometries. For addressing waterresourcesmanagement problems, simulation models are usually externally coupled with optimisation-based management models. However this usually requires a very large number of iterations between the optimisation and simulation models in order to obtain the optimal management solution. As an alternative approach, for improved computational efficiency, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is trained as an approximate simulator of IRENE. The trained ANN is then linked to a Genetic Algorithm (GA) based optimisation model for managing salinisation problems in the coastal zone. The linked simulation-optimisation model is applied to a hypothetical study area for performance evaluation. Acknowledgement The work presented in this paper has been funded by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY), Fellowships of Excellence for Postdoctoral Studies (Siemens Program), 'A simulation-optimization model for assessing the best practices for the protection of surface water and groundwater in the coastal zone', (2013 - 2015). References Spanoudaki, K., Stamou, A.I. and Nanou-Giannarou, A. (2009). Development and verification of a 3-D integrated surface water-groundwater model. Journal of Hydrology, 375 (3-4), 410-427. Spanoudaki, K. (2010). Integrated numerical modelling of surface water groundwater systems (in Greek). Ph.D. Thesis, National Technical

Economics provides a model for describing human behavior applied to the management of waterresources, but that model assumes, among other things, that managers have a way of directly relating immediate actions to long-term economic outcomes. This is rarely the case in waterresources problems where uncertainty has significant impacts on the effectiveness of management strategies and where the management objectives are very difficult to commensurate. The difficulty in using economics is even greater in multiparty disputes, where each party has a different relative value for each of the management objectives, and many of the management objectives are shared. A three step approach to collaborative decision making can overcome these difficulties. The first step involves creating science based performance measures and evaluation tools to estimate the effect of alternative management strategies on each of the non-commensurate objectives. The second step involves developing short-term surrogate operating objectives that implicitly deal with all of the aspects of the long term uncertainty. Management that continually "optimizes" the short-term objectives subject to physical and other constraints that change through time can be characterized as Rule Driven Multi-Objective Management (RDMOM). RDMOM strategies are then tested in simulation models to provide the basis for evaluating performance measures. Participants in the collaborative process then engage in multiparty discussions that create new alternatives, and "barter" a deal. RDMOM does not assume that managers fully understand the link between current actions and long term goals. Rather, it assumes that managers operate to achieve short-term surrogate objectives which they believe will achieve an appropriate balance of both short and long-term incommensurable benefits. A reservoir rule curve is a simple, but often not particularly effective, example of the real-world implementation of RDMOM. Watermanagers find they

Key sources of uncertainty of importance for waterresourcesmanagement are (1) uncertainty in data; (2) uncertainty related to hydrological models (parameter values, model technique, model structure); and (3) uncertainty related to the context and the framing of the decision-making process. The European funded project 'Harmonised techniques and representative river basin data for assessment and use of uncertainty information in integrated watermanagement (HarmoniRiB)' has resulted in a range of tools and methods to assess such uncertainties, focusing on items (1) and (2). The project also engaged in a number of discussions surrounding uncertainty and risk assessment in support of decision-making in watermanagement. Based on the project's results and experiences, and on the subsequent discussions a number of conclusions can be drawn on the future needs for successful adoption of uncertainty analysis in decision support. These conclusions range from additional scientific research on specific uncertainties, dedicated guidelines for operational use to capacity building at all levels. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on these conclusions and anchoring them in the broad objective of making uncertainty and risk assessment an essential and natural part in future decision-making processes.

Development of reliable monitoring and prediction indices and tools are fundamental to drought preparedness, management, and response decision making. This presentation provides an overview of the Global Integrated Drought Monitoring and Prediction System (GIDMaPS) which offers near real-time drought information using both remote sensing observations and model simulations. Designed as a cyberinfrastructure system, GIDMaPS provides drought information based on a wide range of model simulations and satellite observations from different space agencies. Numerous indices have been developed for drought monitoring based on various indicator variables (e.g., precipitation, soil moisture, water storage). Defining droughts based on a single variable (e.g., precipitation, soil moisture or runoff) may not be sufficient for reliable risk assessment and decision making. GIDMaPS provides drought information based on multiple indices including Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSI) and the Multivariate Standardized Drought Index (MSDI) which combines SPI and SSI probabilistically. In other words, MSDI incorporates the meteorological and agricultural drought conditions for overall characterization of droughts, and better management and distribution of waterresources among and across different users. The seasonal prediction component of GIDMaPS is based on a persistence model which requires historical data and near-past observations. The seasonal drought prediction component is designed to provide drought information for waterresourcemanagement, and short-term decision making. In this presentation, both monitoring and prediction components of GIDMaPS will be discussed, and the results from several major droughts including the 2013 Namibia, 2012-2013 United States, 2011-2012 Horn of Africa, and 2010 Amazon Droughts will be presented. The presentation will highlight how this drought cyberinfrastructure system can be used to improve water

Hydrological information at the macro scale has become increasingly available through the establishment of global archives of hydrological observations (e.g. the Global Runoff Data Centre) and the development of hydrological models for the purpose of waterresource assessments and climate change impact studies at the global and continental scale. As such, it has contributed to improved knowledge of the present state of global waterresources and variability across large spatial domains, the role of terrestrial hydrology in earth system models and the influence of climate variability and change on continental hydrology, including extremes. Recent advances include among other, improved representation of subsurface hydrology and land-surface atmosphere feedback processes. Models are further adapted to multiple sources of input data, including remote sensing products, which in turn has facilitated the development of global and continental scale flood and drought monitoring and forecasting systems (e.g. the European Flood Awareness System and the Global Integrated Drought Monitoring and Prediction System). Nevertheless, there are several challenges related to large-scale modelling due to limited data for ground truth (e.g. soil moisture, groundwater, streamflow), large differences in data availability and quality across regions, sub grid variability, downscaled and bias-corrected climate data as driving force, etc. Limitations that have questioned the usefulness of large-scale model simulations for waterresourcemanagement and policy making at various scales. Still, one can argue that such models represent a useful source of information, particular for continental-scale hydrological assessments and evidence-based policy making at the EU level, as up-to-date, consistent hydrological data are not easily available across national borders. Transfer of knowledge across scales is essential to improve hydrologic predictions at different spatial scales in an ever

Full Text Available This article presents the development process for the integrated waterresourcesmanagement and development plan of Maha Sarakham Province by considering the priority and urgency of water problem issues. Gathering feedback from stakeholders and prioritizing watermanagement and development projects are also taken into consideration. In view of integrated plans, the project is classified into short-, medium- and long-term plans with the project duration of 2 years, 3 years and 5 years, respectively. In this case, the plans can be categorized into proposed provincial and local plans. Firstly, the comprehensive provincial plans can be divided into 2 groups, i.e. district plans with the total number of 532 plans, which comprise of 505 projects for coping with drought and 27 projects for flood mitigation, and provincial plans from 13 agencies with the amount of 513 projects, which include 396 projects and 117 projects for dealing with drought and flood, respectively. Secondly, there are 4,099 of local plans to be put in place, in which 3,973 projects and 126 projects are proposed to handle drought and flood problems, respectively. From the analysis, it is found that if all planned drought relief projects are implemented, the water demand for domestic and agricultural needs could be covered by 96% and 51%, respectively. In case of the entire proposed flood alleviation projects are executed, 29% of the total flood prone areas can be effectively protected.

Increasingly watermanagers and planners are being required to incorporate climate change information into their planning processes. This is generally seen as a step in the right direction. However, the continuously evolving and expanding realm of climate information can be confusing to use and easy to apply in ways the information producers never intended, and often in ways those producers might say are not viable. Additionally, advice on how various products should be used is not usually straightforward - it may require an extended dialogue between scientists and end users, which is not always feasible with current resources. While rarely is there a one-size fits all approach, there are usually preferable paths forward. To help the waterresource planning and management community navigate the ever-changing climate science landscape, we present a set of guidelines for better practices when using climate information. These are divided into two categories: (1) process-based recommendations for developing an effective approach for using climate change scenarios, and (2) product-based cautions for using climate change information. This collection of dos and don'ts provides context on why certain strategies are preferable, including real-world examples. This work is intended to provide a foundation that can be built on through dialogue within and between the climate science and application communities to increase the usefulness of climate information.

The Idaho Water Rental Pilot Project was implemented in 1991 as part of the Non-Treaty Storage Fish and Wildlife Agreement between Bonneville Power Administration and the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority. The goal of the project is to quantify resident fish and wildlife impacts resulting from salmon flow augmentation releases made from the upper Snake River Basin. Phase I summarized existing resource information and provided management recommendations to protect and enhance resident fish and wildlife habitat resulting from storage releases for the I improvement of an adromous fish migration. Phase II includes the following: (1) a summary of recent biological, legal, and political developments within the basin as they relate to watermanagement issues, (2) a biological appraisal of the Snake River between American Falls Reservoir and the city of Blackfoot to examine the effects of flow fluctuation on fish and wildlife habitat, and (3) a preliminary accounting of 1993--1994 flow augmentation releases out of the upper Snake, Boise, and Payette river systems. Phase III will include the development of a model in which annual flow requests and resident fish and wildlife suitability information are interfaced with habitat time series analysis to provide an estimate of resident fish and wildlife resources.

Agenda 21 acknowledges women's role in natural resourcesmanagement at the local level and emphasizes the need for more women in senior positions to contribute positively to the implementation of environmental policy. This article assesses Agenda 21's approach to gender equality and its achievements. A few explicit references to women and waterresourcemanagement (WRM) without consideration on the gender implications of the WRM policies and strategies were noted. The macro-oriented, technology-focused and supply-oriented approach of Agenda 21 on WRM hinders the inclusion of a gender perspective. There are two levels of implications of gender-blind intervention in relation to WRM: the issue of social justice and rights, and the negative impact of the neglect of gender inequality on overall planning and success of interventions. The inclusion of a gender perspective at policy and planning levels to facilitate the resolution of inconsistencies, as well as the importance of water sources and patterns of use knowledge for adequate policy development and planning was suggested. It is important that the WRM principle application utilize a sociocultural and gender perspective at both community and household levels before decisions are made on WRM interventions.

Full Text Available Decision support system (DSS tools are rather popular in the literature on waterresourcesmanagement. The European Project “Splash” conducted a survey of the literature and of DSS implementation in developing countries with specific reference on Africa. Experts in the field were consulted through an ad hoc questionnaire and interviews. The results of the survey indicate that the exchange of experiences amongst projects with similar objectives or even the same case study is very limited, with a tendency towards restarting every time from scratch. As a consequence, it seems that DSS developments have produced only limited positive impacts. Most experts contacted shared either the frustration deriving from the limited impacts on intended end-users, who rarely used the tool after the project end, or in the case of ongoing projects, the preoccupation for future maintenance. Responses from the questionnaires indicate that priority efforts should not focus on developing the tools, but rather on improving the effectiveness and applicability of integrated waterresourcemanagement legislative and planning frameworks, training and capacity building, networking and cooperation, harmonization of transnational data infrastructures and, very importantly, learning from past experiences and adopting enhanced protocols for DSS development.

The quest for water security has been a struggle throughout human history. Only in recent years has the scale of this quest moved beyond the local, to the national and regional scales and to the planet itself. Absent or unreliable water supply, sanitation and irrigation services, unmitigated floods and droughts, and degraded water environments severely impact half of the planet's population. Over the past few years, water insecurity has become recognized in the World Economic Forum global risk studies as one of the greatest threats that business leaders themselves see that they face in the future, both in terms of likelihood and scale. The scale and complexity of the water challenges faced by society, particularly but not only in the world's poorest regions, are now recognized, as is the imperative of overcoming these challenges for a stable and equitable world. How can we ensure the well-being of all people and ecosystems with the water, human, technological, and financial resources available? In the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals water has to be managed more effectively and wisely by unlocking scientific, managerial, and business capabilities; breaking out of technological lock-in; and innovative and adaptive portfolios of solutions have to be developed while removing barriers to progress on sound water governance. IIASA's Water Futures and Solutions Initiative (WFAS) is an unprecedented inter-disciplinary scientific initiative to identify robust and adaptive portfolios of optional solutions across different economic sectors, including agriculture, energy and industry, and to test these solution-portfolios with multi-model ensembles of hydrologic and sector models to obtain a clearer picture of the trade-offs, risks, and opportunities. The results of WFaS scenarios and models will provide a basis for long-term strategic planning of waterresource development. And given the complexity of the water system, WFaS will uniquely provide policy makers

The Pawcatuck River Basin in southwestern Rhode Island and southeastern Connecticut is an important high-quality waterresource for domestic and public supplies, irrigation, recreation, and the aquatic ecosystem. Concerns about the effects of water withdrawals on aquatic habitat in the basin have prompted local, State, and Federal agencies to explore water-management strategies that minimize the effects of withdrawals on the aquatic habitat. As part of this process, the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Rhode Island WaterResources Board completed a study to assess the effects of current (2000-04) and potential water withdrawals on streamflows and groundwater levels using hydrologic simulation models developed for the basin. The major findings of the model simulations are: *Moving highly variable seasonal irrigation withdrawals from streams to groundwater wells away from streams reduces short-term fluctuations in streamflow and increases streamflow in the summer when flows are lowest. This occurs because of the inherent time lag between when water is withdrawn from the aquifer and when it affects streamflow. *A pumped well in the vicinity of small streams indicates that if withdrawals exceed available streamflow, groundwater levels drop substantially as a consequence of water lost from aquifer storage, which may reduce the time wetlands and vernal pools are saturated, affecting the animal and plant life that depend on these habitats. *The effects of pumping on waterresources such as ponds, streams, and wetlands can be minimized by relocating pumping wells, implementing seasonal pumping schemes that utilize different wells and pumping rates, or both. *The effects of projected land-use change, mostly from forest to low- and medium density housing, indicate only minor changes in streamflow at the subbasin scale examined; however, at a local scale, high flows could increase, and

and temporal distribution of waterresources on annual and inter-annual basis in the country. To address the impact of climate change on ago-biodiversity and waterresources, the present study was initiated with the aim to increase awareness to adapt to changing waterresources situation due to climate change. Secondly to build climate change resilience into Pakistan agriculture system and also to enhance the understanding of climate change issues by farmers, and policy makers to enable them to make informed decision. Our assessment revealed a gap in our knowledge on the climate change vulnerability of mountain agro-biodiversity and institutional setups, as well as lack of policy imperatives to address the issues. Therefore, the 2014 generally assembly of EGU will provide a forum for our further understanding of the relevant scienti?c and geopolitical issues. This forum will not only establish a social network for future collaborative research but will also enable us to devise better strategies for both biodiversity and water-resourcemanagement and climate change adaptation.

Full Text Available Reducing diffuse pollution is a perpetuating problem for environmental regulators. This paper will consider novel ways to regulate its impacts on the aquatic environment, with particular reference to rural landuse. It will look at the relationship between science, policy and law, and the contributions of integrated waterresourcesmanagement and governance at regional, national and river basin scales. Regulatory frameworks for water in the European Union will be explored, along with their implementation nationally in Scotland and at catchment scale in the Tweed river basin. It will conclude that regulation has a role to play, but that it is necessary to take a visionary holistic and integrated approach, nesting regulation within a governance framework that involves all stakeholders and takes full account of developing science and socio-economic drivers to meet environmental objectives.

Full Text Available Reducing diffuse pollution is a perpetuating problem for environmental regulators. This paper will consider novel ways to regulate its impacts on the aquatic environment, with particular reference to rural landuse. It will look at the relationship between science, policy and law, and the contributions of integrated waterresourcesmanagement and governance at regional, national and river basin scales. Regulatory frameworks for water in the European Union will be explored, along with their implementation nationally in Scotland and at catchment scale in the Tweed river basin. It will conclude that regulation has a role to play, but that it is necessary to take a visionary holistic and integrated approach, nesting regulation within a governance framework that involves all stakeholders and takes full account of developing science and socio-economic drivers to meet environmental objectives.

The presentation of technological advances in the field of waterresources will be the focus of Advances in WaterResources Technology, a conference to be held in Athens, Greece, March 20-23, 1991. Organized by the European Committee for WaterResourcesManagement, in cooperation with the National Technical University of Athens, the conference will feature state-of-the art papers, contributed original research papers, and poster papers. Session subjects will include surface water, groundwater, waterresources conservation, water quality and reuse, computer modeling and simulation, real-time control of waterresources systems, and institutions and methods for technology.The official language of the conference will be English. Special meetings and discussions will be held for investigating methods of effective technology transfer among European countries. For this purpose, a wide representation of research institutions, universities and companies involved in waterresources technology will be attempted.

Our society is at present highly dependent on coal, which will continue to play a major role in baseload electricity production in the coming decades. Most projected climate change mitigation strategies require CO2 Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as a vital element to stabilize CO2 atmospheric emissions. In these strategies, CCS will have to expand in the next two decades by several orders of magnitude compared to current worldwide implementation. At present the interactions among freshwater extraction, CO2 injection, and brine management are being considered too narrowly across CCS operations, and in the case of freshwater almost completely overlooked. Following the authors’ recently published overview of these challenges, an active and integrated management of waterresources throughout CCS operations was proposed to avoid overlooking critical challenges that may become major obstacles to CCS implementation. Waterresourcesmanagement is vital for several reasons including that a coal-fired power plant retrofitted for CCS requires twice as much cooling water as the original plant. However this increased demand may be accommodated by brine extraction and treatment, which would concurrently function as large-scale pressure management and a potential source of freshwater. Synergistic advantages of such proactive integration that were identified led the authors to concluded that: Active management of CCS operations through an integrated approach -including brine production, treatment, use for cooling, and partial reinjection- can address challenges simultaneously with several synergistic advantages; and, that freshwater and brine must be linked to CO2 and pressure as key decision making parameters throughout CCS operations while recognizing scalability and potential pore space competition challenges. This work presents a detailed modeling investigation of a potential integration opportunity resulting from brine production. Technical results will focus solely on the

The need for global and integrated approaches to waterresourcesmanagement, both from the quantitative and the qualitative point of view, has long been recognized. Water quality management is a major issue for sustainable development and a mandatory task with respect to the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive as well as the Swiss legislation. However, data modelling to develop relational databases and subsequent geographic information system (GIS)-based watermanagement instruments are a rather recent and not that widespread trend. The publication of overall guidelines for data modelling along with the EU Water Framework Directive is an important milestone in this area. Improving overall water quality requires better and more easily accessible data, but also the possibility to link data to simulation models. Models are to be used to derive indicators that will in turn support decision-making processes. For this whole chain to become effective at a river basin scale, all its components have to become part of the current daily practice of the local water administration. Any system, tool, or instrument that is not designed to meet, first of all, the fundamental needs of its primary end-users has almost no chance to be successful in the longer term. Although based on a pre-existing waterresourcesmanagement system developed in Switzerland, the methodological approach applied to develop a GIS-based water quality management system adapted to the Romanian context followed a set of well-defined steps: the first and very important step is the assessment of needs (on the basis of a careful analysis of the various activities and missions of the water administration and other relevant stakeholders in watermanagement related issues). On that basis, a conceptual data model (CDM) can be developed, to be later on turned into a physical database. Finally, the specifically requested additional functionalities (i.e. functionalities not provided by classical

Recycling water within the local ground-water system can increase the quantity of water available for use, control or avoid environmental pollution, and control temperature of the water supply. Pumped ground water supplied a fish-rearing facility for 15 months, and the waste water recharged the local ground-water system through an infiltration pond. Eighty-three percent of the recharged water returned to the well (recycled). Make-up water from the ground-water system provided the remaining 17 percent.

Started with the discussions on the value orientation of urban water supply industry marketization,the article points out that the current urban water supply industry marketization reform is inconsistent with the goal of public water service equalization to some extent.The article also analyzes the problems emerged in urban water supply industry marketization reform and various reasons in view of efficiency and fairness.An efficiency and fairness oriented management model is built in this article to illustrate how the government should conciliate interests of various communities involved in the process of marketization reform of the urban water supply industry so as to actualize the coordination of efficiency and fairness.At the end,an assumption on urban water price is put forward to help achieve the public water service equalization.

Full Text Available Brazil and Colombia are rich in terms of water supply, ranking as world leaders in the supply of waterresources. Despite this, both countries have problems of relative scarcity of this vital liquid in highly populated areas with much economic activity. Establishing policies and legal environmental standards has long tradition in both countries. However, although there are provisions and instruments for watermanagement at the water basin level, these do not necessarily follow the conceptual development of integrated waterresourcesmanagement (IWRM. As a result, the two countries have partially implemented IWRM elements but with different characteristics both in its structure and instrumentality. In Colombia the State Government, through the Regional Environmental Corporations, implements IWRM (concessions, fee for water use, pollution rate, basin plans, etc, with no formal involvement of civil society management. In Brazil, however, IWRM management structure and tools are decentralized and participatory, as are the Water Basin Committees, entities where the State Government, municipalities and users participate, those with the greatest weight in watermanagement. In Brazil, however, this model is not yet implemented in all watersheds. Thus, the aim of this paper is to compare the institutional and legal aspects of watermanagement models in Brazil and Colombia with regard to the integrated watermanagement concept. For the latter, we worked with a case study for each country regarding Nima River watershed (Colombia and Tietê Jacaré (Brazil.

The fast-paced conflicts in the Middle East have the potential to disrupt management and supply of waterresources in the region. In this research, we use the normalized difference water index (NDWI) in order to monitor changes in the extent of various water bodies over the time span of the Landsat 4, 5, 7, and 8 satellites (1984-present). We focused on Mosul and Haditha dam lakes, located on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, respectively, each of which has experienced changes in sovereignty over the last few years of conflict. We established two areas, one land and one water, on each image, plotted the distributions of all NDWI values for each area, and used the number of standard deviations between the two distributions in order to set a dynamic NDWI threshold for each image. Using this threshold, we determined water pixels and lake surface area, and computed daily percent change in lake extent between images. Furthermore, we took account of explanatory waterresource variables, such as upstream dam management (via surface extent of upstream Turkish dams), precipitation (via globally-compiled databases), evaporation (based on surface area decreases during non-rainy months), and irrigation withdrawals (based on MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Indices). We used these explanatory variables in order to build a general model of expected dam lake surface extent, and we looked to see if anomalies from expected surface area corresponded with periods of conflict. We found that the recent years of conflict do not appear to have had as much impact on the Mosul and Haditha dam lakes as did the conflicts related to the earlier Gulf Wars. The dam lakes have recorded an overall decrease in surface area simultaneous to increases of upstream dams. A strong seasonal signal driven by springtime Turkish snowmelt and summer evaporation is also evident.

Integrated hydrological models (IHMs) consider surface water and subsurface water as a unified system, and have been widely adopted in basin-scale waterresources studies. However, due to IHMs' mathematical complexity and high computational cost, it is difficult to implement them in an iterative model evaluation process (e.g., Monte Carlo Simulation, simulation-optimization analysis, etc.), which diminishes their applicability for supporting decision-making in real-world situations. Our studies investigated how to effectively use complex IHMs to address real-world water issues via surrogate modeling. Three surrogate modeling approaches were considered, including 1) DYCORS (DYnamic COordinate search using Response Surface models), a well-established response surface-based optimization algorithm; 2) SOIM (Surrogate-based Optimization for Integrated surface water-groundwater Modeling), a response surface-based optimization algorithm that we developed specifically for IHMs; and 3) Probabilistic Collocation Method (PCM), a stochastic response surface approach. Our investigation was based on a modeling case study in the Heihe River Basin (HRB), China's second largest endorheic river basin. The GSFLOW (Coupled Ground-Water and Surface-Water Flow Model) model was employed. Two decision problems were discussed. One is to optimize, both in time and in space, the conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater for agricultural irrigation in the middle HRB region; and the other is to cost-effectively collect hydrological data based on a data-worth evaluation. Overall, our study results highlight the value of incorporating an IHM in making decisions of waterresourcesmanagement and hydrological data collection. An IHM like GSFLOW can provide great flexibility to formulating proper objective functions and constraints for various optimization problems. On the other hand, it has been demonstrated that surrogate modeling approaches can pave the path for such incorporation in real

Summary: The quality of water that develops in the proposed reservoirs of the Upper Bear River Storage Project will determine the possible uses of the water. Previous studies of water quality in the Bear River and its tributaries have reported water quality problems relating to nitrate ion, sanitary indicator bacteria, suspended solids, and phosphorus concentrations. Most point sources of water pollution inthe bas...

Full Text Available Floods are the most important natural hazard in the EU and US, causing 700 deaths and at least €25 billion in insured economic losses in Europe since 1998, and causing nearly $10 billion annual average flood losses in the US. Flood control is commonly viewed as a matter of building dykes, dams, and other structures, but effective flood management within the perspective of Integrated WaterResourceManagement (IWRM must address multiple components of the flood risk management cycle (Figure 1. We systematically reviewed governance structures, guidance documents, and mapping products in both the EU and US, drawing particular examples from California and Spain, to determine how the US and the EU approach the flood risk management within different IWRM initiatives, which strategies and agencies are involved in the different phases –characterization (flood hazard and risk assessment and mapping, mitigation (prevention and protection, emergency (preparation and response, and (short and long term recovery-, and how these agencies relate to each other. The regions have strong similarities in economy and environmental values, but have evolved very different approaches to cope with floods. The US and EU have similar organizational structures, but very different legislative frameworks. In the US overarching policy and large scale infrastructure funding have traditionally resided at the federal level with state and local agencies exercising strong land use control. EU member states have arguably advanced ahead of the US in some significant ways since adoption of the EU Floods Directive in 2007, a more top-down approach. Among the Directive’s many components, one important requirement is submission of flood risk management plans (by the end of 2015, which, for first time, take into account all phases of flood management. This umbrella strategy to cope with floods is creating a more consistent and integrated flood risk management approach in Europe. In

Full Text Available This article examines community-driven multiple use water services (MUS as pioneered by the Rural Village WaterResourcesManagement Project (RVWRMP in the Far and Mid-Western development regions of Nepal. These regions are characterised by poverty, remoteness, rugged terrain, food insecurity, water scarcity, and post-conflict legacy. Water provision for domestic and productive uses provides opportunities to address poverty and livelihoods in environments with highly decentralised governance. This study explores the first-hand lessons learned in the RVWRMP in Nepal since 2006. This project is embedded within the local government. Key project entry points are decentralisation, participation and empowerment. This article reflects how the community-managed systems are used for multiple uses whether they were designed for it or not. It focuses on household- and community-level changes and related institution building and participatory planning through Water Use Master Plans and a Step-by-Step approach. Recommendations are made for scaling up multiple use services.

Waterresources decisions in the 21Sf Century that will affect allocation of water for economic and environmental will rely on simulations from integrated models of river basins. These models will not only couple natural systems such as surface and ground waters, but will include economic components that can assist in model assessments of river basins and bring the social dimension to the decision process. The National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Sustainability of semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA) has been developing integrated models to assess impacts of climate variability and land use change on waterresources in semi-arid river basins. The objectives of this paper are to describe the SAHRA integrated modeling approach and to describe the linkage between social and natural sciences in these models. Waterresources issues that arise from climate variability or land use change may require different resolution models to answer different questions. For example, a question related to streamflow may not need a high-resolution model whereas a question concerning the source and nature of a pollutant will. SAHRA has taken a multiresolution approach to integrated model development because one cannot anticipate the questions in advance, and the computational and data resources may not always be available or needed for the issue to be addressed. The coarsest resolution model is based on dynamic simulation of subwatersheds or river reaches. This model resolution has the advantage of simplicity and social factors are readily incorporated. Users can readily take this model (and they have) and examine the effects of various management strategies such as increased cost of water. The medium resolution model is grid based and uses variable grid cells of 1-12 km. The surface hydrology is more physically based using basic equations for energy and water balance terms, and modules are being incorporated that will simulate engineering components

Groundwater–surface water interactions constitute an important link between wetlands and the surrounding catchment. Wetlands may develop in topographic lows where groundwater exfiltrates. This water has its functions for ecological processes within the wetland, while surface water outflow from

Waterresource planning and management is subject to large uncertainties with respect to the impact of climate change and socio-economic development on water systems. In order to deal with these uncertainties, probabilistic climate and socio-economic scenarios were developed based on the Principle of Maximum Entropy, as defined within information theory, and as inputs to hydrological models to construct probabilistic water scenarios using Monte Carlo simulation. Probabilistic scenarios provide more explicit information than equally-likely scenarios for decision-making in waterresourcemanagement. A case was developed for the Yellow River Basin, China, where future water availability and water demand are affected by both climate change and socio-economic development. Climate scenarios of future precipitation and temperature were developed based on the results of multiple Global climate models; and socio-economic scenarios were downscaled from existing large-scale scenarios. Probability distributions were assigned to these scenarios to explicitly represent a full set of future possibilities. Probabilistic climate scenarios were used as input to a rainfall-runoff model to simulate future river discharge and socio-economic scenarios for calculating water demand. A full set of possible future water supply-demand scenarios and their associated probability distributions were generated. This set can feed the further analysis of the future water balance, which can be used as a basis to plan and managewaterresources in the Yellow River Basin. Key words: Probabilistic scenarios, climate change, socio-economic development, watermanagement

A "Digital Divide" in data representation exists between the preferred way of data access by the hydrology community (i.e., as time series of discrete spatial objects) and the common way of data archival by earth science data centers (i.e., as continuous spatial fields, one file per time step). This Divide has been an obstacle, specifically, between the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. Hydrologic Information System (CUAHSI HIS) and NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). An optimal approach to bridging the Divide, developed by the GES DISC, is to reorganize data from the way they are archived to some way that is optimal for the desired method of data access. Specifically for CUAHSI HIS, selected data sets were reorganized into time series files, one per geographical "point." These time series files, termed "data rods," are pre-generated or virtual (generated on-the-fly). Data sets available as data rods include North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS), Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA), Land Parameter Retrieval Model (LPRM), Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)-Land, and Groundwater and Soil Moisture Conditions from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Data Assimilation drought indicators for North America Drought Monitor (GRACE-DA-DM). In order to easily avail the operational waterresources community the benefits of optimally reorganized data, we have developed multiple methods of making these data more easily accessible and usable. These include direct access via RESTful Web services, a browser-based Web map and statistical tool for selected NLDAS variables for the U.S. (CONUS), a HydroShare app (Data Rods Explorer, under development) on the Tethys Platform, and access via the GEOSS Portal. Examples of drought-related applications of these data and data access

The already completed, multi-disciplinary research project GLOWA-Danube has developed a regional scale, integrated modeling system, which was successfully applied on the 77,000 km2 Upper Danube basin to investigate the impact of Global Change on both the natural and anthropogenic water cycle. At the end of the last project phase, the integrated modeling system was transferred into the open source project OpenDanubia, which now provides both the core system as well as all major model components to the general public. First, this will enable decision makers from government, business and management to use OpenDanubia as a tool for proactive management of waterresources in the context of global change. Secondly, the model framework to support integrated simulations and all simulation models developed for OpenDanubia in the scope of GLOWA-Danube are further available for future developments and research questions. OpenDanubia allows for the investigation of water-related scenarios considering different ecological and economic aspects to support both scientists and policy makers to design policies for sustainable environmental management. OpenDanubia is designed as a framework-based, distributed system. The model system couples spatially distributed physical and socio-economic process during run-time, taking into account their mutual influence. To simulate the potential future impacts of Global Change on agriculture, industrial production, water supply, households and tourism businesses, so-called deep actor models are implemented in OpenDanubia. All important water-related fluxes and storages in the natural environment are implemented in OpenDanubia as spatially explicit, process-based modules. This includes the land surface water and energy balance, dynamic plant water uptake, ground water recharge and flow as well as river routing and reservoirs. Although the complete system is relatively demanding on data requirements and hardware requirements, the modular structure

Trust is a word that is often heard in discussions about stakeholder participation in watermanagement programmes and projects. A break down in trust between participants is often attributed to the failure of a project reaching its objectives. In contrast, the development of trust is often described as a success in itself, and is thought to lead to positive watermanagement outcomes. To explore how trust impacts watermanagement, this research explores the factors that led to trust development and break-down, and the implications of this, in a major stakeholder engagement project in watermanagement in North America. A major review of the Lake Ontario and St Lawrence River water level operating system (the LOSL Study) was commissioned in 1999 by the International Joint Commission (IJC). The goal of the five-year LOSL Study was to produce an operating policy for the system that was acceptable to everyone impacted by the water levels and flows in the basin. Through public meetings and consultations, the Study aimed to bring together and combine public and scientist input to co-produce an operating policy that met the needs of all interest groups. Freely accessible documentation of the public involvement activities that took place is available, which is used to explore trust and mistrust development. Provisional findings show that some public/interest group representatives mistrusted the Study. This was related to concerns over data quality, whether appropriate indicators were selected by the researchers and whether the models used were producing accurate outputs. Scientist responses to questions at public meetings were able to address some of these concerns and therefore build trust in the methods, but could also lead to further mistrust if public concerns and questions were not addressed adequately (for example, simply dismissed as irrelevant by scientists without due explanation). The impacts of distrust between participants and scientists included apathy and low

Waterresources development is very challenging in Taiwan due to her diverse geographic environment and climatic conditions. To pursue sustainable waterresources development, rationality and integrity is essential for waterresources planning. River water quality and flow regimes are closely related to each other and affect river ecosystems simultaneously. This study aims to explore the complex impacts of water quality and flow regimes on fish community in order to comprehend the situations of the eco-hydrological system in the Danshui River of northern Taiwan. To make an effective and comprehensive strategy for sustainable waterresourcesmanagement, this study first models fish diversity through implementing a hybrid artificial neural network (ANN) based on long-term observational heterogeneity data of water quality, stream flow and fish species in the river. Then we use stream flow to estimate the loss of dissolved oxygen based on back-propagation neural networks (BPNNs). Finally, the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) is established for river flow management over the Shihmen Reservoir which is the main reservoir in this study area. In addition to satisfying the water demands of human beings and ecosystems, we also consider water quality for river flow management. The ecosystem requirement takes the form of maximizing fish diversity, which can be estimated by the hybrid ANN. The human requirement is to provide a higher satisfaction degree of water supply while the water quality requirement is to reduce the loss of dissolved oxygen in the river among flow stations. The results demonstrate that the proposed methodology can offer diversified alternative strategies for reservoir operation and improve reservoir operation strategies for producing downstream flows that could better meet both human and ecosystem needs as well as maintain river water quality. Keywords: Artificial intelligence (AI), Artificial neural networks (ANNs), Non

In times of drought, the local water supplies of the city of Santa Barbara, California, are insufficient to satisfy water demand. In response, the city has built a seawater desalination plant and gained access to imported water in 1997. Of primary concern to the city is delivering water from the various sources at a minimum cost while satisfying water demand and controlling seawater intrusion that might result from the overpumping of ground water. A simulation-optimization model has been developed for the optimal management of Santa Barbara?s waterresources. The objective is to minimize the cost of water supply while satisfying various physical and institutional constraints such as meeting water demand, maintaining minimum hydraulic heads at selected sites, and not exceeding water-delivery or pumping capacities. The model is formulated as a linear programming problem with monthly management periods and a total planning horizon of 5 years. The decision variables are water deliveries from surface water (Gibraltar Reservoir, Cachuma Reservoir, Cachuma Reservoir cumulative annual carryover, Mission Tunnel, State Water Project, and desalinated seawater) and ground water (13 production wells). The state variables are hydraulic heads. Basic assumptions for all simulations are that (1) the cost of water varies with source but is fixed over time, and (2) only existing or planned city wells are considered; that is, the construction of new wells is not allowed. The drought of 1947?51 is Santa Barbara?s worst drought on record, and simulated surface-water supplies for this period were used as a basis for testing optimal management of current waterresources under drought conditions. Assumptions that were made for this base case include a head constraint equal to sea level at the coastal nodes; Cachuma Reservoir carryover of 3,000 acre-feet per year, with a maximum carryover of 8,277 acre-feet; a maximum annual demand of 15,000 acre-feet; and average monthly capacities for the

Environmental Impact Assessment in Sustainable WaterResources Development: ... the current level of understanding of environmental impact assessment of water ... In the arena of Integrated WaterResourcesManagement, the environment ...

The paper titled HUMAN RESOURCEMANAGEMENT SYSTEM is basically concerned with managing the Administrator of HUMAN RESOURCE Department in a company. A Human ResourceManagement System, refers to the systems and processes at the intersection between human resourcemanagement and information technology. It merges HRM as a discipline and in particular its basic HR activities and processes with the information technology field, whereas the programming of data processing systems evolved into standa...

Information is valuable when it improves decision-making (e.g., actions can be adjusted to better suit the situation at hand) and enables the mitigation of damage. However, quantifying the value of information is often difficult. Here we explore a general approach to understand the economic value of drought information for watermanagers framing our approach in the precautionary principle that reminds us that uncertainty is not a reason to postpone or avoid action. We explore how decision making can disregard uncertain effects, taking a short-term approach and focusing instead on the certain costs and benefits of taking action. Two main questions arise: How do we know that advanced drought information is actually helping decisions?; and What is the value of information in the decision process? The approach is applied to several regulated waterresources systems in Spain. It first views drought information as a factor in the decision process which can be used by watermanagers to reduce uncertainty. Second, the value of drought information is the expected gain in a decision outcome (utility) from using additional information. Finally, the gains of improved information are compared with the information collection costs. Here we estimate the value by taking into account the accuracy of the drought information, the subjective probabilities about the value, analyzed as Bayesian probabilities, and the ability or skill of the stakeholders to apply the drought information to modify their actions. Since information may be considered a public good (non-rivalry and non-excludability), it may justify public policy in the provision of information, considering social costs and benefits. The application of the framework to the Spanish case studies shows that information benefits exceeds to costs when drought frequency is 20-40% above normal values; below these values uncertainty in the decisions dominate the results; above these values, the management decisions are limited even

Riverbed alluvial gold panning activities are a cause for degradation of river channels and banks as well as waterresources, particularly through accelerated erosion and siltation, in many areas of Zimbabwe. The lower Manyame sub-catchment located in the Northern part of the country is one such area. This study analysed the implications of cross-sectoral coordination of the management of panning and its impacts. This is within the context of conflicts of interests and responsibilities. A situational analysis of different stakeholders from sectors that included mining, environment, water, local government and water users who were located next to identified panning sites, as well as panners was carried out. Selected sites along the Dande River were observed to assess the environmental effects. The study determined that all stakeholder groups perceived siltation and river bank degradation as the most severe effect of panning on waterresources, yet there were divergent views with regards to coordination of panning management. The Water Act of 1998 does not give enough power to management institutions including the Lower Manyame Sub-catchment Council to protect waterresources from the impacts of panning, despite the fact that the activities affect the waterresource base. The Mines and Minerals Act of 1996 remains the most powerful legislation, while mining sector activities adversely affect environmental resources. Furthermore, complexities were caused by differences in the definition of waterresourcesmanagement boundaries as compared to the overall environmental resourcesmanagement boundaries according to the Environmental Management Act (EMA) of 2000, and by separate yet parallel water and environmental planning processes. Environmental sector institutions according to the EMA are well linked to local government functions and resourcemanagement is administrative, enhancing efficient coordination.

Global trends in consumptive water use indicate a growing and unsustainable reliance on waterresources. Approximately 40% of total food production originates from irrigated agriculture. With increasing crop yield demands, water use efficiency must increase to maintain a stable food and water trade. This work aims to increase our understanding of soil hydrologic fluxes at intermediate spatial scales. Fixed and roving cosmic-ray neutron probes were combined in order to characterize the spatial and temporal patterns of soil moisture at three study sites across an East-West precipitation gradient in the state of Nebraska, USA. A coarse scale map was generated for the entire domain (122 km2) at each study site. We used a simplistic data merging technique to produce a statistical daily soil moisture product at a range of key spatial scales in support of current irrigation technologies: the individual sprinkler (˜102m2) for variable rate irrigation, the individual wedge (˜103m2) for variable speed irrigation, and the quarter section (0.82 km2) for uniform rate irrigation. Additionally, we were able to generate a daily soil moisture product over the entire study area at various key modeling and remote sensing scales 12, 32, and 122 km2. Our soil moisture products and derived soil properties were then compared against spatial datasets (i.e. field capacity and wilting point) from the US Department of Agriculture Web Soil Survey. The results show that our "observed" field capacity was higher compared to the Web Soil Survey products. We hypothesize that our results, when provided to irrigators, will decrease water losses due to runoff and deep percolation as sprinkler managers can better estimate irrigation application depth and times in relation to soil moisture depletion below field capacity and above maximum allowable depletion. The incorporation of this non-contact and pragmatic geophysical method into current irrigation practices across the state and globe has the

Zakynthos, an island of 408 km2 in the Ionian Sea, is completely dependent on its groundwater resources for fulfilling the demands of the water supplies. The use of groundwater resources has become particularly intensive during the last decades because of the intense urbanization, the tourist development and the irrigated land expansion that took place. The main aquifers are developed in limestones (karstic), sandstones of neogene deposits (confined) and alluvial deposits (phreatic). This paper focuses on the assessment of their hydrogeological characteristics and the groundwater quality. For this investigation, groundwater level measurements, drilling data, pumping tests and chemical analyses of groundwater samples were used. The average annual consumption that is abstracted from the aquifer systems, is 4.9 × 106 m3 year-1. The exploitable groundwater reserves were estimated to be 3.3 × 106 m3 year-1. In the last decades, the total abstractions exceed the natural recharge, due to the tourist development; therefore the aquifer systems are not used safely. The results of chemical analyses showed a deterioration of the groundwater quality. According to the analyses the shallow alluvial aquifer and the confined aquifer are polluted by nitrates at concentrations in excess of 25 mg L-1. High sulphate concentrations might be related to the dissolution of gypsum. Seawater intrusion phenomena are recorded in coastal parts of aquifer systems. The increased Cl- concentrations in karstic aquifer indicate signs of overexploitation. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis was applied in order to evaluate the SWOT of the groundwater resources. Moreover, some recommendations are made to assist the rational management that aim at improving the sustainability of the groundwater resources of Zakynthos Island.

Full Text Available This paper presents the current situation in Polish waterresourcesmanagement. Discussed here are measures taken by the Ministry of Environment to introduce a new water law, as well as reforms of watermanagement in Poland. The state of waterresources in Poland are described, and the actions needed to improve this situation, taking into account possible climate changes and their impact on the use of waterresources. Critically referred to is the introduction by the Ministry of Environment of charges for water abstraction by hydro power plants, and adverse effects for the energy and watermanagement sectors are discussed.

The design and management of waterresource infrastructure have been generally based on the information available in the periods of observational record with the central, default assumption of stationarity. It is well known that this assumption is not true in general and the common practice of relying on the periods of observational record for the analysis of waterresources is flawed. To understand and address the climate-driven non-stationarities in hydrologic variables in a region, one approach, which is still largely unexplored in many regions, is to analyse natural proxy records of hydroclimatic behaviour (such as tree-ring chronologies) over the past several centuries or millennia. There have been research activities in this "paleo-hydrology" field across the world demonstrating the existence of significant non-stationarities and extreme behaviours in climate and hydrology over the past couple of centuries, in the absence of greenhouse gas emissions. On the basis of the science of dendrohydrology, which mainly aims to reconstruct paleo-hydrology, this study follows three objectives: (1) the identification of non-stationarities in different statistical properties of paleo-hydrologic time series, mainly the mean and covariance, (2) more effective quantification of uncertainties associated with the reconstructions of streamflow time series based on tree-ring chronologies, and (3) the generation of an ensemble of basin-wide paleo-hydrologic time series data. The Alberta portion of the Saskatchewan River basin (SRB), Canada, is used as a case study. Results indicate that the statistical properties of annual paleo-hydrologic time series in the basin, particularly the covariance structure, have undergone significant changes at different points in the history. The results also demonstrate that the reliability of tree-ring chronologies as proxies for hydrologic variables in the basin differs for different periods in time, as the range of uncertainty produced based on

从对目前国内外流域水资源管理发展历程与存在的问题的分析入手,立足于水资源管理的实际问题,以流域水资源复杂大系统分析与冲突分析理论为基础,系统地提出了适合我国国情的流域水资源集成管理模式、组织结构与技术路线.%Starting from analyzing the course and problems of domestic and oversea waterresourcesmanagement progressing, the model, organization structure and technical line of integrated waterresourcesmanagement on river basin suitable for national conditions were put forward on the basis of systemic analysis and conflict analysis theories on complicated watershed system and actual problems of waterresourcesmanagement.

SummaryManagingwaterresources systems usually involves conflicts. Behaviors of stakeholders, who might be willing to contribute to improvements and reach a win-win situation, sometimes result in worse conditions for all parties. Game theory can identify and interpret the behaviors of parties to waterresource problems and describe how interactions of different parties who give priority to their own objectives, rather than system's objective, result in a system's evolution. Outcomes predicted by game theory often differ from results suggested by optimization methods which assume all parties are willing to act towards the best system-wide outcome. This study reviews applicability of game theory to waterresourcesmanagement and conflict resolution through a series of non-cooperative waterresource games. The paper illustrates the dynamic structure of waterresource problems and the importance of considering the game's evolution path while studying such problems.

By means of a case study, the successful implementation of a rheologically optimised cement-based mortar for the construction as well as for the rehabilitation of rain water cisterns is presented in this paper. The material was developed within the scope of a German-Indonesian joint project ["Integrated WaterResourcesManagement" (IWRM)], funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Comprehensive rheological investigations are presented which provide the database for the optimization of the mortar with regard to its intended range of application. For the selection of the source materials, special emphasis was placed on the ready availability at low cost. The rheological properties of the fresh mortar allow an easy workability by hand while the hardened mortar shows a durable and tight appearance at the same time. The developed material can be used as a coating for walls, floors and ceilings of cisterns, for the local rehabilitation of damaged areas only or even as a construction material for complete new cisterns. The future multiplication of the IWRM project results within the region was assured by a local capacity development when the presented material concept was applied in practise in Indonesia for the construction of sustainable rain water cisterns in Gunung Kidul.

Full Text Available Stakeholder participation is becoming increasingly important in waterresourcesmanagement. In participatory processes, stakeholders contribute by putting forward their own perspective, and they benefit by enhancing their understanding of the factors involved in decision making. A diversity of modeling tools can be used to facilitate participatory processes. Bayesian networks are well suited to this task for a variety of reasons, including their ability to structure discussions and visual appeal. This research focuses on developing and testing a set of evaluation criteria for public participation. The advantages and limitations of these criteria are discussed in the light of a specific participatory modeling initiative. Modeling work was conducted in the Upper Guadiana Basin in central Spain, where uncontrolled groundwater extraction is responsible for wetland degradation and conflicts between farmers, water authorities, and environmentalists. Finding adequate solutions to the problem is urgent because the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive requires all aquatic ecosystems to be in a "good ecological state" within a relatively short time frame. Stakeholder evaluation highlights the potential of Bayesian networks to support public participation processes.

Most recently developed climate scenarios indicate a potential future increase in water stress in the region of Comahue, located in the North-Patagonia, Argentina. This region covers about 140,000 km2 where the Limay River and the Neuquén River converge into the Negro River, constituting the largest integrated basins in Argentina providing various uses of waterresources: a) hydropower generation, contributing 15% of the national electricity market; b) fruit-horticultural products for local markets and export; c) human and industrial water supply; d) mining and oil exploitation, including Vaca Muerta, second world largest reserves of shale gas and fourth world largest reserves of shale-oil. The span of multiple jurisdictions and the convergence of various uses of waterresources are a challenge for integrated understanding of economically and politically driven resource use activities on the natural system. The impacts of climate change on the system could lead to waterresource conflicts between the different political actors and stakeholders. This paper presents the results of a hydrological simulation of the Limay river and Neuquén river basins using WEAP (Water Evaluation and Planning) considering the operation of artificial reservoirs located downstream at a monthly time step. This study aims to support policy makers via integrated tools for water-energy planning under climate uncertainties, and to facilitate the formulation of water policy-related actions for future water stress adaptation. The value of the integrated resource use model is that it can support local policy makers understand the implications of resource use trade-offs under a changing climate: 1) water availability to meet future growing demand for irrigated areas; 2) water supply for hydropower production; 3) increasing demand of water for mining and extraction of unconventional oil; 4) potential resource use conflicts and impacts on vulnerable populations.

-source Water Observation and Information Systems (WOIS) for monitoring, assessing and inventorying waterresources in a cost-effective manner; 2. Capacity building and training of African water authorities and technical centers to fully exploit the increasing observation capacity offered by current...

Managingwater for sustainable use and economic development is both a technical and a governance challenge in which knowledge production and sharing play a central role. This article evaluates and compares the role of participatory governance and scientific information in decision-making in four basins in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, and the United States. Watermanagement institutions in each of the basins have evolved during the last 10–20 years from a relatively centralized water-management s...

Full Text Available The paper explores how agricultural water pricing could contribute to lowering water demand when uses are unobserved (asymmetric information. The topic of the paper is justified by the fact that most water authorities worldwide do not control water uses at the farm scale. The study draws inspiration from the pricing policies of a Reclamation and Irrigation Board in Northern Italy. It analyses the optimal design of current tariff strategies with respect both to the actual regulator’s goals and the cost recovery objective of an ideal regulator driven by European Water Framework Directive principles and having full information. The analysis is based on the logic of a Principal-Agent model implemented as a mathematical non-linear programming model. Given the current pricing structure and assuming zero transaction costs, the results show a relevant increase in net benefits for the ideal scenario with respect to the actual one as water use costs increase. Benefits differences between the two scenarios mark a limit in value below which mechanisms able to solve the existing asymmetries between the principal and the agents are economically desirable. The study concludes by showing that the current regulator’s discriminatory strategy (pricing structure would be better justified with higher levels of cost for water use. However, the existence of non-zero transaction costs related to the control of water uses points to the need for further research in order to analyze incentive mechanisms in the absence of water metering.

The EPA is providing notice of proposed Administrative Penalty Assessment against Organic ResourceManagement, Inc. (“Respondent”), a business located at 13060 County Park Road, Florissant, Missouri for alleged violations of its National Pollutant Discharg

In many watersheds of the Mediterranean Countries, waterresources are presently fully or overcommitted. Irrigators are the largest consumers of fresh water in Mediterranean Countries using up to 80% of all allocated water in some regions. Administrative efforts should be directed towards an integrated policy of water allocation which accounts for the characteristics and specificity of each farm, requiring the availability of data bases and management tools (decision support systems) specifically designed to fulfil the objectives of maximizing water use efficiency. The overall objective of this program was the development of a District Information System (DIS) which could be used by stakeholders at purposes of irrigation district day-to-day management as well as for planning and strategic decision-making. The DIS was developed from a GIS-based modelling approach which integrates a generic crop model, a hydraulic module for the water transfer/distribution system and uses remote sensing information. The main sub-objectives were: (i) the development of an operational algorithm to retrieve crop evapotranspiration from remote sensing data, (ii) the development of an information system with friendly user interface for the data base, the crop module and the hydraulic module and (iii) the analysis and validation of management scenarios from model simulations predicting the respective behaviour. Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) was used to derive monthly actual evapotranspiration (ET) values from Landsat TM imagery. Meteorological data from the archive of the Institute for Research and Technology, Thessaly (I.RE.TE.TH) have also been used. The methodology was developed using high quality Landsat TM images during 2007 growing season. Monthly ET values are then used as an input to CROPWAT model. Outputs of CROPWAT model are then used as input for the hydraylic module consisted of TECHNOLOGISMIKI, WATERCAD and WEAP model. Hence, a reference scenario was

This thesis is an enquiry into the persistent problem of water scarcity in the paddy growing regions in the southeastern part of Palakkad district, in the state of Kerala, in South India. It views the problem of scarcity as an outcome of the existing unsustainable and inequitable mode of water resou

Since the 1950s, the population in the arid to hyperarid Tarim River basin has grown rapidly concurrent with an expansion of irrigated agriculture. This threatens the Tarim River basin's natural ecosystems and causes water shortages, even though increased discharges in the headwaters have been observed more recently. These increases have mainly been attributed to receding glaciers and are projected to cease when the glaciers are unable to provide sufficient amounts of meltwater. Under these circumstances watermanagement will face a serious challenge in adapting its strategies to changes in river discharge, which to a greater extent will depend on changes in precipitation. In this paper, we aim to develop accurate seasonal predictions of precipitation to improve waterresourcesmanagement. Possible predictors of precipitation for the Tarim River basin were either downloaded directly or calculated using NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 1 and NOAA Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (SST) V3b data in monthly resolution. To evaluate the significance of the predictors, they were then correlated with the monthly precipitation dataset GPCCv6 extracted for the Tarim River basin for the period 1961 to 2010. Prior to the Spearman rank correlation analyses, the precipitation data were averaged over the subbasins of the Tarim River. The strongest correlations were mainly detected with lead times of four and five months. Finally, an artificial neural network model, namely a multilayer perceptron (MLP), and a multiple linear regression (LR) model were developed each in two different configurations for the Aksu River subbasin, predicting precipitation five months in advance. Overall, the MLP using all predictors shows the best performance. The performance of both models drops only slightly when restricting the model input to the SST of the Black Sea and the Siberian High Intensity (SHI) pointing towards their importance as predictors.

This is the second of two papers that describe how data mining can aid natural-resourcemanagers with the difficult problem of controlling the interactions between hydrologic and man-made systems. Data mining is a new science that assists scientists in converting large databases into knowledge, and is uniquely able to leverage the large amounts of real-time, multivariate data now being collected for hydrologic systems. Part 1 gives a high-level overview of data mining, and describes several applications that have addressed major waterresource issues in South Carolina. This Part 2 paper describes how various data mining methods are integrated to produce predictive models for controlling surface- and groundwater hydraulics and quality. The methods include: - signal processing to remove noise and decompose complex signals into simpler components; - time series clustering that optimally groups hundreds of signals into "classes" that behave similarly for data reduction and (or) divide-and-conquer problem solving; - classification which optimally matches new data to behavioral classes; - artificial neural networks which optimally fit multivariate data to create predictive models; - model response surface visualization that greatly aids in understanding data and physical processes; and, - decision support systems that integrate data, models, and graphics into a single package that is easy to use.

This is the second of two papers that describe how data mining can aid natural-resourcemanagers with the difficult problem of controlling the interactions between hydrologic and man-made systems. Data mining is a new science that assists scientists in converting large databases into knowledge, and is uniquely able to leverage the large amounts of real-time, multivariate data now being collected for hydrologic systems. Part 1 gives a high-level overview of data mining, and describes several applications that have addressed major waterresource issues in South Carolina. This Part 2 paper describes how various data mining methods are integrated to produce predictive models for controlling surface- and groundwater hydraulics and quality. The methods include: - signal processing to remove noise and decompose complex signals into simpler components; - time series clustering that optimally groups hundreds of signals into "classes" that behave similarly for data reduction and (or) divide-and-conquer problem solving; - classification which optimally matches new data to behavioral classes; - artificial neural networks which optimally fit multivariate data to create predictive models; - model response surface visualization that greatly aids in understanding data and physical processes; and, - decision support systems that integrate data, models, and graphics into a single package that is easy to use.

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) Core Modelling Practices Pursuit is developing resources to describe core practices for developing and using models to support integrated waterresourcemanagement. These practices implement specific steps in the modelling process with an interdisciplinary perspective; however, the particular practice that is most appropriate depends on contextual aspects specific to the project. The first task of the pursuit is to identify the various steps for which implementation practices are to be described. This paper reports on those results. The paper draws on knowledge from the modelling process literature for environmental modelling (Jakeman et al., 2006), engaging stakeholders (Voinov and Bousquet, 2010) and general modelling (Banks, 1999), as well as the experience of the consortium members. We organise the steps around the four modelling phases. The planning phase identifies what is to be achieved, how and with what resources. The model is built and tested during the construction phase, and then used in the application phase. Finally, models that become part of the ongoing policy process require a maintenance phase. For each step, the paper focusses on what is to be considered or achieved, rather than how it is performed. This reflects the separation of the steps from the practices that implement them in different contexts. We support description of steps with a wide range of examples. Examples are designed to be generic and do not reflect any one project or context, but instead are drawn from common situations or from extremely different ones so as to highlight some of the issues that may arise at each step. References Banks, J. (1999). Introduction to simulation. In Proceedings of the 1999 Winter Simulation Conference. Jakeman, A. J., R. A. Letcher, and J. P. Norton (2006). Ten iterative steps in development and evaluation of environmental models. Environmental Modelling and Software 21, 602-614. Voinov, A

To comply with the guidelines for environmental control and legal requirements, the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute (IPEN/ CNEN - Brazil/ SP) performs the Environmental Monitoring Program for Chemical Stable Compounds (PMA-Q) since 2007, in attendance to the Term for the Adjustment of Conduct (TAC) signed between IPEN and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA). The PMA-Q program includes the assessment of the IPEN's wastewater released in water body, and the groundwater assessment, which is carried out in nine monitoring wells. In groundwater is analyzed, by ion chromatography, species regulated by CONAMA 396/08 [01] fluoride, chloride, nitrite-N, nitrate-N, sulfate, sodium, potassium, ammonium, magnesium and calcium, besides other parameters. Furthermore, based on legal requirements, each year the program is reviewed and improvement actions are planned and implemented. Therefore, the integrated monitoring of groundwater should provide information on the quality and dynamics of the aquifer compared to seasonal variations and anthropogenic effects. Thus, this study intends to evaluate the chemical features of the institute groundwater, evaluating the database of the monitoring program from 2011 to 2014, for the ions chloride, nitrate-N, sulfate, sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and bicarbonate, using these information diagrams will be developed for the characterization of the wells. This assessment will be essential to support the control actions of environmental pollution and the management of waterresources. Making possible the establishment of groundwater Quality Reference Figures (QRF), according to the CONAMA 396/08 [01] rating, in order to demonstrate that the activities developed at IPEN are not affecting on the aquifer features. (author)

The management of complex water problems is nowadays being practised through new ways and approaches. Therefore, water engineers, planners and managers should be appropriately educated through modern undergraduate curricula and by well-designed postgraduate specialisation programmes. Within this framework, a study of the specific characteristics…

The necessity of taking into account the interests of public health care informing and implementing solutions for watermanagement has been substantiated. Scientific frameworks and regulatory sanitary legislative documents relating to various areas of watermanagement have been considered. The possibilities and the importance of performing complex territory medical ecological forecasts of effects of changes in hydrological situation have been demonstrated.

Waterresources and agriculture are often affected by the weather anomalies in India resulting in disproportionate damage. While short to sub-seasonal prediction systems and forecast products are available, a skilful hydrologic forecast of runoff and root-zone soil moisture that can provide timely information has been lacking in India. Using precipitation and air temperature forecasts from the Climate Forecast System v2 (CFSv2), the Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFSv2) and four products from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), here we show that the IITM ensemble mean (mean of all four products from the IITM) can be used operationally to provide a hydrologic forecast in India at a 7-45-day accumulation period. The IITM ensemble mean forecast was further improved using bias correction for precipitation and air temperature. Bias corrected precipitation forecast showed an improvement of 2.1 mm (on the all-India median mean absolute error - MAE), while all-India median bias corrected temperature forecast was improved by 2.1 °C for a 45-day accumulation period. Moreover, the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model simulated forecast of runoff and soil moisture successfully captured the observed anomalies during the severe drought years. The findings reported herein have strong implications for providing timely information that can help farmers and watermanagers in decision making in India.

It is widely known that the water shortage is much more serious in some regions or basins under changing environment. In this paper, ET-based (evapotranspiration-based) waterresourcesmanagement (ET-WRM) model is purposed for land use planning and waterresourcesmanagement, which mainly focus on generalized ET, i.e. agricultural, industrial, domestic, and ecological water consumption, to achieve high efficient use of waterresource. To accurately predict the ET, it is decomposed to several intrinsic mode functions and one residue by the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method and forecasted by a hybrid model combined artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM) and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA). The model is applied in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China, a typical region of waterresources shortage, and the results show that: (i) the pass rate of prediction obtained by the modified hybrid forecasting model reaches up to 93% in the study area, which shows higher accuracy than applying any one method of them singly. The predicted ET in programming year, 2020, will reach to 3.48 billion m³. (ii) in the study area, to achieve water-saving goal, agricultural water-saving measures should be taken in the future, due to the existing phenomenon of low irrigation water use efficiency and wide planting area of high water-consuming crops. (iii) the water-saving volume in agriculture, industry and domestic in 2020 should be reached to 1.48×108m³, 1.11×108m³and 0.61×108m³, to balance the available water supply and future water consumption, compared with the baseline year, 2011. (iv) for water-saving in agriculture, the adjustment of planting structure, irrigation scheduling, agricultural activities and engineering measures is the main measure.

Developing and applying systems analysis methods for improving the development and management of real world waterresource systems, I have learned, is primarily a social process. This talk is a call for more recognition of this reality in the modeling approaches we propose in the papers and books we publish. The mathematical models designed to inform planners and managers of water systems that we see in many of our journals often seem more complex than they need be. They also often seem not as connected to reality as they could be. While it may be easier to publish descriptions of complex models than simpler ones, and while adding complexity to models might make them better able to mimic or resemble the actual complexity of the real physical and/or social systems or processes being analyzed, the usefulness of such models often can be an illusion. Sometimes the important features of reality that are of concern or interest to those who make decisions can be adequately captured using relatively simple models. Finding the right balance for the particular issues being addressed or the particular decisions that need to be made is an art. When applied to real world problems or issues in specific basins or regions, systems modeling projects often involve more attention to the social aspects than the mathematical ones. Mathematical models addressing connected interacting interdependent components of complex water systems are in fact some of the most useful methods we have to study and better understand the systems we manage around us. They can help us identify and evaluate possible alternative solutions to problems facing humanity today. The study of real world systems of interacting components using mathematical models is commonly called applied systems analyses. Performing such analyses with decision makers rather than of decision makers is critical if the needed trust between project personnel and their clients is to be developed. Using examples from recent and ongoing

Since the concept was explained in detail at the Dublin Conference in 1992 (International Conference on Water and the Environment: Development Issues for the 21st Century), Integrated WaterResourcesManagement has been at the core of thinking on waterresource development. Today, integrated water

Since the concept was explained in detail at the Dublin Conference in 1992 (International Conference on Water and the Environment: Development Issues for the 21st Century), Integrated WaterResourcesManagement has been at the core of thinking on waterresource development. Today, integrated water r

The Zeravshan River is a transboundary river whose water is mainly used for irrigation of agricultural lands of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Sufficiently rich hydropower resources in upstream of the Zeravshan River characterize the Republic of Tajikistan. Continuous monitoring of waterresources condition is necessary for planning the development of this area taking into account hydropower production and irrigation needs. Water quality of Zeravshan River is currently one of the main problems in the relationship between the Republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and it frequently triggers conflict situations between the two countries. In most cases, the problem of water quality of the Zeravshan River is related to river pollution by wastewater of the Anzob Mountain-concentrating Industrial Complex (AMCC) in Tajikistan. In this paper results of research of chemical and bacteriological composition of the Zeravshan River waters are presented. The minimum impact of AMCC on quality of water of the river was experimentally established.

Full Text Available Freshwater resources of India are getting fast degraded and depleted from the changing climate and pressure of fast rising population. Changing intensity and seasonality of rainfall affect quantity and quality of water. Most of the rivers are polluted far above safety limits from the untreated domestic, industrial and agricultural effluents. Changes in the intensity, frequency and tracks of storms salinate coastal aquifers. Aquifers are also under the threat from rising sea level. Groundwater in urban limits and industrial zones are far beyond safety limits. Large-scale destruction of wetlands for industries and residential complexes has affected the quality of surface and groundwater resources in most parts of India. Measures to maintain food security and the new developments schemes such as river linking will further deteriorate the waterresources. Falling water availability leads to serious health issues and various socio-economic issues. India needs urgent and appropriate adaptation strategies in the water sector.

Freshwater resources of India are getting fast degraded and depleted from the changing climate and pressure of fast rising population. Changing intensity and seasonality of rainfall affect quantity and quality of water. Most of the rivers are polluted far above safety limits from the untreated domestic, industrial and agricultural effluents. Changes in the intensity, frequency and tracks of storms salinate coastal aquifers. Aquifers are also under the threat from rising sea level. Groundwater in urban limits and industrial zones are far beyond safety limits. Large-scale destruction of wetlands for industries and residential complexes has affected the quality of surface and groundwater resources in most parts of India. Measures to maintain food security and the new developments schemes such as river linking will further deteriorate the waterresources. Falling water availability leads to serious health issues and various socio-economic issues. India needs urgent and appropriate adaptation strategies in the water sector.

Tree-ring based reconstruction of paleohydrology can be a valuable and important means to extend the available hydrological records for several centuries. Such record extension, when properly done, can improve waterresourcesmanagement and planning by making available realistic long records that reflect past short- and long-term hydrometeorological variabilities. This research highlights some of the important, and perhaps unresolved, issues in tree-ring based reconstruction of paleohydrology, especially in semi-arid regions. The relationships between tree growth, as represented by tree-ring chronologies (TRCs), runoff (Q), precipitation (P), and evapotranspiration (ET) are discussed within both statistical and hydrological contexts. The Oldman River Basin (OMRB), Alberta, Canada, is presented as a case study, with TRCs and hydrometeorological data used to demonstrate the relevant issues. Runoff and precipitation data were available through measurements, and actual evapotranspiration was estimated using a lumped conceptual hydrological model developed in this study for the OMRB. Correlation analysis was conducted to explore the relationships between TRCs and each of Q, P, and ET over the entire historical record (globally) as well as locally within the wet and dry subperiods. Global and local correlation strengths and linear relationships appear to be significantly different, particularly affecting tree-ring based inferences about the hydrology and wet and dry episodes from reconstructions made using regression models. This finding is not typically highlighted in the available literature. Reconstruction of paleoQ may also not be as credible as paleoP and paleoET. This is discussed within the context of the watershed storage and release functions. It was also found that a moving average window, of more than one year, of P and ET time series might be necessary for reconstruction of these variables using tree-ring chronologies. This study improves our understanding of

SummaryLow flow selections are essential to waterresourcemanagement, water supply planning, and watershed ecosystem restoration. In this study, a new approach, namely the frequent-low (FL) approach (or frequent-low index), was developed based on the minimum frequent-low flow or level used in minimum flows and/or levels program in northeast Florida, USA. This FL approach was then compared to the conventional 7Q10 approach for low flow selections prior to its applications, using the USGS flow data from the freshwater environment (Big Sunflower River, Mississippi) as well as from the estuarine environment (St. Johns River, Florida). Unlike the FL approach that is associated with the biological and ecological impacts, the 7Q10 approach could lead to the selections of extremely low flows (e.g., near-zero flows) that may hinder its use for establishing criteria to prevent streams from significant harm to biological and ecological communities. Additionally, the 7Q10 approach could not be used when the period of data records is less than 10 years by definition while this may not the case for the FL approach. Results from both approaches showed that the low flows from the Big Sunflower River and the St. Johns River decreased as time elapsed, demonstrating that these two rivers have become drier during the last several decades with a potential of salted water intrusion to the St. Johns River. Results from the FL approach further revealed that the recurrence probability of low flow increased while the recurrence interval of low flow decreased as time elapsed in both rivers, indicating that low flows occurred more frequent in these rivers as time elapsed. This report suggests that the FL approach, developed in this study, is a useful alternative for low flow selections in addition to the 7Q10 approach.

Full Text Available Changes in the abundance and distribution of free water can negatively influence wildlife in arid regions. Free water is considered a limiting factor for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus in the Great Basin Desert. Consequently, a better understanding of differential use of water by individuals and the sexes could influence the conservation and management of mule deer and waterresources in their habitats. We deployed remote cameras at all known water sources (13 wildlife water developments and 4 springs on one mountain range in western Utah, USA, during summer from 2007 to 2011 to document frequency and timing of water use, number of water sources used by males and females, and to estimate population size from individually identified mule deer. Male and female mule deer used different water sources but visited that resource at similar frequencies. Individual mule deer used few water sources and exhibited high fidelity to that resource. Wildlife water developments were frequently used by both sexes. Our results highlight the differing use of water sources by sexes and individual mule deer. This information will help guide managers when siting and reprovisioning wildlife water developments meant to benefit mule deer and will contribute to the conservation and management of this species.

temperatures, rising oceans levels, and fewer fresh waterresources will create new and additional types of problems. Because of these dramatic changes...range of sectors (irrigation, energy and industry, domestic use) and to reduced water drainage and runoff (as a result of increased evaporative losses...climate countries. . . . The summer of 2007 was a turning point for Greece since the extreme heat waves caused less rainfall, high evaporation , water

Water is a vital resource for natural ecosystems and human life, and assuring a high quality of water and protectingit from chemical contamination is a major societal goal in the European Union. The Water Framework Directive(WFD) and its daughter directives are the major body of ...

Water is a vital resource for natural ecosystems and human life, and assuring a high quality of water and protecting it from chemical contamination is a major societal goal in the European Union. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) and its daughter directives are the major body of legislation for

Water is a vital resource for natural ecosystems and human life, and assuring a high quality of water and protectingit from chemical contamination is a major societal goal in the European Union. The Water Framework Directive(WFD) and its daughter directives are the major body of ...

It is today commonly accepted that adaptation strategies will be needed to cope with the hydrological consequences of projected climate change. The main objective of the IWRM-Net Climaware project is to design adaptation strategies for various socio-economic sectors and evaluate their relevance at the European scale. Within the project, the Seine case study focuses on dam management. The Seine River basin at Paris (43800km²) shows major socio-economic stakes in France. Due to its important and growing demography, the number of industries depending on waterresources or located on the river sides, and the developed agricultural sector, the consequences of droughts and floods may be dramatic. To mitigate the extreme hydrological events, a system of four large multi-purpose reservoirs was built in the upstream part of the basin between 1949 and 1990. The IPCC reports indicate modifications of the climate conditions in northern France in the future. An increase of mean temperature is very likely, and the rainfall patterns could be modified: the uncertainty on future trends is still high, but summer periods could experience lower quantities of rainfall. Anticipating these changes are crucial: will the present reservoirs system be adapted to these conditions? Here we propose to evaluate the capacity of the Seine River reservoirs to withstand future projected climate conditions using the current management rules. For this study a modeling chain was designed. We used two hydrological models: GR4J, a lumped model used as a benchmark, and TGR, a semi-distributed model. TGR was tuned to explicitly account for reservoir management rules. Seven climatic models forced by the moderate A1B IPCC scenario and downscaled using a weather-type method (DSCLIM, Pagé et al., 2009), were used. A quantile-quantile type method was applied to correct bias in climate simulations. A model to mimic the way reservoirs are managed was also developed. The evolution of low flows, high flows and

Full Text Available With time, after Romania’s accession to the E.U., the national legislation adhered to the Water Framework Directive. In the study we present the Someş and Tisa river catchments management and development plans, from the beginnings till today. We also conclude that the ecological and chemical state for the water bodies in agreement with the Water Framework Directive represents the main challenge for the future of these waters.

Innovative approaches for tracking the Earth's natural resources, especially water which is essential for all living things, are essential during a time of rapid environmental change. The Central Valley is a nexus for waterresources in California, draining the Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds. The distribution of water throughout California and the Central Valley, while dynamic, is highly managed through an extensive regional network of canals, levees, and pumps. Water allocation and delivery is determined through a complex set of rules based on water contracts, historic priority, and other California water policies. Furthermore, urban centers, agriculture, and the environment throughout the state are already competing for water, particularly during drought. Competition for water is likely to intensify as California is projected to experience continued increases in demand due to population growth and more arid growing conditions, while also having reduced or modified water supply due to climate change. As a result, it is difficult to understand or predict how water will be used to fulfill wildlife and wetland conservation needs. A better understanding of the spatial distribution of water in near real-time can facilitate adaptation of waterresourcemanagement to changing conditions on the landscape, both over the near- and long-term. The Landsat satellite mission delivers imagery every 16-days from nearly every place on the earth at a high spatial resolution. We have integrated remote sensing of satellite data, classification modeling, bioinformatics, optimization, and ecological analyses to develop an automated near real-time waterresources tracking and decision-support system for the Central Valley of California. Our innovative system has applications for coordinated watermanagement in the Central Valley to support people, places, and wildlife and is being used to understand the factors that drive variation in the distribution and abundance of water

Management of waterresources across the world is becoming more challenging as a result of population increase and the changes in climatic patterns that are now evident across the globe, especially so in Southern Africa. It is therefore imperative that water researchers begin to apply innovative methods that are accurate and reliable. In this editorial we highlight some of the methods that have been applied in this changing environment.

水资源持续开发和永续利用是实现经济、社会和生态环境持续、协调发展的前提条件之一。加强水资源管理是实现水资源持续开发和永续利用的关键。本文认为要实现水资源的科学管理必须明确以下几个问题：水资源管理是以实现水资源的持续开发和永续利用为最终归宿；水资源管理应尽快完成由供给管理向需求管理的转变；明确水资源经济价值管理和环境价值管理方式的差异性；水资源管理应尽快上升为水资源资产化管理；我国干旱地区更要重视水资源的科学管理。%The sustainable development of waterresources is one of premises in making economic, social and environmental development in a harmonious development way. Strengthening waterresourcesmanagement is the key to the sustainable development of waterresources. In order to make scientific management of waterresources, several issues as follows have to be solved: The sustainable development of waterresources is the aim of waterresourcesmanagement; Waterresourcesmanagement should be transferred from supplies management to demand management; It is important to clarity the distinction between the management of economic value of waterresources and environmental value of waterresources; Waterresourcesmanagement should be water capital management essentially; The arid region of our country should pay more attention to waterresourcesmanagement.

The need for economic analysis for the design and implementation of efficient waterresourcesmanagement policies is well documented in the economics literature. This need is also emphasised in the European Union's recent Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), and is relevant to the objectives of Euro-limpacs, an EU funded project which inter alia, aims to provide a decision-support system for valuing the effects of future global change on Europe's freshwater ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to define the role of economic valuation techniques in assisting in the design of efficient, equitable and sustainable policies for waterresourcesmanagement in the face of environmental problems such as pollution, intensive land use in agriculture and climate change. The paper begins with a discussion of the conceptual economic framework that can be used to inform water policy-making. An inventory of the available economic valuation methods is presented and the scope and suitability of each for studying various aspects of waterresources are critically discussed. Recent studies that apply these methods to waterresources are reviewed. Finally, an application of one of the economic valuation methods, namely the contingent valuation method, is presented using a case study of the Cheimaditida wetland in Greece.

Monitoring of streamflow may help to determine the optimum levels of its use for sustainable watermanagement in the face of climate change. We reviewed available methods for monitoring streamflow on the basis of six criteria viz. their applicability across different terrains and size of the streams, operational ease, time effectiveness, accuracy, environmental impact that they may cause and cost involve in it. On the basis of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the methods reviewed, we conclude that the timed volume method is apt for hilly terrain having smaller streams due to its operational ease and accuracy of results. Although comparatively expensive, the weir and flume methods are suitable for long term studies of small hill streams, since once the structure is put in place, it yields accurate results. In flat terrain, the float method is best suited for smaller streams for its operational ease and cost effectiveness, whereas, for larger streams, the particle image velocimetry may be used for its accuracy. Our review suggests that the selection of a method for monitoring streamflow may be based on volume of the stream, accuracy of the method, accessibility of the terrain and financial and physical resources available.

Growing water scarcity in agriculture is an increasing problem in future in many regions of the world. For assessing irrigation as a measure to increase agricultural water security a generalized stochastic optimization framework for a spatial distributed estimation of future irrigation water demand is proposed, which ensures safe yields and a high water productivity at the same time. Different open loop and closed loop control strategies are evaluated within this stochastic optimization framework in order to generate reliable stochastic crop water production functions (SCWPF). The resulting database of SCWPF can serve as a central decision support tool for both, (i) a cost benefit analysis of farm irrigation modernization on a local scale and (ii) a regional water demand management using a multi-scale approach for modeling and implementation. The new approach is applied using the example of a case study in Saxony, which is dealing with the sustainable management of future irrigation water demands and its implementation.

Full Text Available Pakistan is highly dependent on waterresources originating in the mountain sources of the upper Indus for irrigated agriculture which is the mainstay of its economy. Hence any change in available resources through climate change or socio-economic factors could have a serious impact on food security and the environment. In terms of both ratio of withdrawals to runoff and per-capita water availability, Pakistan's waterresources are already highly stressed and will become increasingly so with projected population changes. Potential changes to supply through declining reservoir storage, the impact of waterlogging and salinity or over-abstraction of groundwater, or reallocations for environmental remediation of the Indus Delta or to meet domestic demands, will reduce water availability for irrigation.

The impact of climate change on resources in the Upper Indus is considered in terms of three hydrological regimes – a nival regime dependent on melting of winter snow, a glacial regime, and a rainfall regime dependent on concurrent rainfall. On the basis of historic trends in climate, most notably the decline in summer temperatures, there is no strong evidence in favour of marked reductions in waterresources from any of the three regimes. Evidence for changes in trans-Himalayan glacier mass balance is mixed. Sustainability of waterresources appears more threatened by socio-economic changes than by climatic trends. Nevertheless, analysis and the understanding of the linkage of climate, glaciology and runoff is still far from complete; recent past climate experience may not provide a reliable guide to the future.

Full Text Available Pakistan is highly dependent on waterresources originating in the mountain sources of the upper Indus for irrigated agriculture which is the mainstay of its economy. Hence any change in available resources through climate change or socio-economic factors could have a serious impact on food security and the environment. In terms of both ratio of withdrawals to runoff and per-capita water availability, Pakistan's waterresources are already highly stressed and will become increasingly so with projected population changes. Potential changes to supply through declining reservoir storage, the impact of waterlogging and salinity or over-abstraction of groundwater, or reallocations for environmental remediation of the Indus Delta or to meet domestic demands, will reduce water availability for irrigation.

The impact of climate change on resources in the Upper Indus is considered in terms of three hydrological regimes – a nival regime dependent on melting of winter snow, a glacial regime, and a rainfall regime dependent on concurrent rainfall. On the basis of historic trends in climate, most notably the decline in summer temperatures, there is no strong evidence in favour of marked reductions in waterresources from any of the three regimes. Evidence for changes in trans-Himalayan glacier mass balance is mixed. Sustainability of waterresources appears more threatened by socio-economic changes than by climatic trends. Nevertheless, analysis and the understanding of the linkage of climate, glaciology and runoff is still far from complete; recent past climate experience may not provide a reliable guide to the future.

Owing to less natural snow reliability as a result of climate change on the one hand, and the demand of higher standards by winter tourists on the other hand, the production of artificial snow in ski resorts has increased substantially during the last 20 years and is likely to increase further in future. Little research has been conducted on the impact of snowmaking as a water demand stakeholder on a regional water balance. In this paper, a regional water balance (water demand-waterresources) is analysed for the greater Kitzbueheler Region in the Austrian Alps, for the current situation and a future climate change scenario (2 degrees C warming). For this temperature rise a significant reduction in natural snow cover duration and snow accumulation is predicted, an effect that increases with lower altitudes and differs between the winter months. Due to the shortening of the winter season, a change in seasonality of river flows and available waterresources (ground and surface water) occurs. Both increase in winter, and decrease in spring. The water demand for improvement snowmaking increases, especially in the month of March. However, December proved to be the critical month due to the large amounts of water required for base snowmaking both now and in future. These results stress the necessity of reservoir storage for base snowmaking on a regional level. Water availability during other months but winter is sufficient to fill these reservoirs.

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, launched in November 2009, is the European Space Agency's (ESA) second Earth Explorer Opportunity mission. The scientific objectives of the SMOS mission directly respond to the need for global observations of soil moisture and ocean salinity, two key variables used in predictive hydrological, oceanographic and atmospheric models. SMOS observations also provide information on the characterisation of ice and snow covered surfaces and the sea ice effect on ocean-atmosphere heat fluxes and dynamics, which affects large-scale processes of the Earth's climate system. The focus of this paper will be on SMOS's contribution to support waterresourcemanagement: SMOS surface soil moisture provides the input to derive root-zone soil moisture, which in turn provides the input for the drought index, an important monitoring prediction tool for plant available water. In addition to surface soil moisture, SMOS also provides observations on vegetation optical depth. Both parameters aid agricultural applications such as crop growth, yield forecasting and drought monitoring, and provide input for carbon and land surface modelling. SMOS data products are used in data assimilation and forecasting systems. Over land, assimilating SMOS derived information has shown to have a positive impact on applications such as NWP, stream flow forecasting and the analysis of net ecosystem exchange. Over ocean, both sea surface salinity and severe wind speed have the potential to increase the predictive skill on the seasonal and short- to medium-range forecast range. Operational users in particular in Numerical Weather Prediction and operational hydrology have put forward a requirement for soil moisture data to be available in near-real time (NRT). This has been addressed by developing a fast retrieval for a NRT level 2 soil moisture product based on Neural Networks, which will be available by autumn 2015. This paper will focus on presenting the

textabstractIn recent years, governmental institutes have started to use citizen science as a form of public participation. The Dutch water authorities are among them. They face pressure on the water governance system and a water awareness gap among the general public, and consider citizen science a

textabstractIn recent years, governmental institutes have started to use citizen science as a form of public participation. The Dutch water authorities are among them. They face pressure on the water governance system and a water awareness gap among the general public, and consider citizen science a

Full Text Available that an effect-likelihood approach has the potential to address the variability and uncertainty in management of a surface water body subject to multiple stressors. An in-stream receiving water risk objective approach might be considered....

This paper demonstrates that combining spatial land surface data with socio-economic analysis provides a number of indicators to strengthen decision making in integrated water and environmental management. It provides a basis to: track current water consumption in the Inkomati Basin in South-Africa;

This paper demonstrates that combining spatial land surface data with socio-economic analysis provides a number of indicators to strengthen decision making in integrated water and environmental management. It provides a basis to: track current water consumption in the Inkomati Basin in South-Africa;

This paper demonstrates that combining spatial land surface data with socio-economic analysis provides a number of indicators to strengthen decision making in integrated water and environmental management. It provides a basis to: track current water consumption in the Inkomati Basin in South-Africa;

This paper demonstrates that combining spatial land surface data with socio-economic analysis provides a number of indicators to strengthen decision making in integrated water and environmental management. It provides a basis to: track current water consumption in the Inkomati Basin in South-Africa;

The growing pressure on the world's fresh waterresources is enforced by population growth that leads to conflicts between demands for different purposes. A main concern on water use is the conflict between the environment and other purposes like hydropower, irrigation for agriculture and domestic and industry water supply, where total flows are diverted without releasing water for ecological conservation. As a consequence, some of the common problems related to water faced by many countries are shortage, quality deterioration and flood impacts. Hence, utilization of integrated waterresourcesmanagement in a single system, which is built up by river basin, is an optimum way to handle the question of water. However, in many areas, when planning for balancing water demands major gaps exist on baseline knowledge of waterresources. In order to bridge these gaps, hydro-logical models are among the available tools used to acquire adequate understanding of the characteristics of the river basin. Apart from forecasting and predicting the quantity and quality of water for decision makers, some models could also help in predicting the impacts of natural and anthropogenic changes on waterresources and also in quantifying the spatial and temporal availability of the resources. However, main challenges lie in choosing and utilizing these models for a specific basin and managerial plan. In this study, an analysis of the different types of models and application of a selected model to characterize the Awash River basin, located in Ethiopia, is presented. The results from the modeling procedure and the performance of the model are discussed. The different possible sources of uncertainties in the modeling process are also discussed. The results indicate dissimilar predictions in using different methods; hence proper care must be taken in selecting and employing available methods for a specific watershed prior to presenting the results to decision makers

With China's rapid economic development and rapid population growth, coupled with the rapid industrialization and city process makes the hitherto unknown pressure of waterresources in China, save water and protect waterresources has become an problem to be urgently solved.Although determine a series of policy objectives and priorities related to waterresourcemanagement in the"eleven five"planning, but so far, the scarcity of waterresources becomes a serious problem has not yet been effectively controlled.Water pollution and scarcity of waterresources will bring economic higher cost, more serious is, water pollution is still threat to public health.This article from the current situation of waterresourcesmanagement in China, and analyze why the implementation of waterresourcesmanagement policies and how to reform the past unrealistic environmental policy.% 随着我国经济的高速发展和人口急剧增长，加之快速的工业化和城市化进程使得中国水资源承受前所未有的压力，节约用水/保护水资源成为亟待解决的问题。虽然“十一五”规划中确定了有关水资源管理的一系列政策目标和重点，但是到目前为止，日益严重的水资源稀缺问题尚未得到有效控制。水污染和水资源稀缺会带来更高的经济成本，更为严重的是，水污染还是威胁公众健康的侩子手。本文从目前我国水资源管理现状出发，分析为什么要落实水资源管理政策以及怎样改革以往不切实际的环境政策。

Managers of large river basins face conflicting demands for waterresources such as wildlife habitat, water supply, wastewater assimilative capacity, flood control, hydroelectricity, and recreation. The Savannah River Basin, for example, has experienced three major droughts since 2000 that resulted in record low water levels in its reservoirs, impacting dependent economies for years. The Savannah River estuary contains two municipal water intakes and the ecologically sensitive freshwater tidal marshes of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. The Port of Savannah is the fourth busiest in the United States, and modifications to the harbor to expand ship traffic since the 1970s have caused saltwater to migrate upstream, reducing the freshwater marsh’s acreage more than 50 percent. A planned deepening of the harbor includes flow-alteration features to minimize further migration of salinity, whose effectiveness will only be known after all construction is completed.One of the challenges of large basin management is the optimization of water use through ongoing regional economic development, droughts, and climate change. This paper describes a model of the Savannah River Basin designed to continuously optimize regulated flow to meet prioritized objectives set by resourcemanagers and stakeholders. The model was developed from historical data using machine learning, making it more accurate and adaptable to changing conditions than traditional models. The model is coupled to an optimization routine that computes the daily flow needed to most efficiently meet the water-resourcemanagement objectives. The model and optimization routine are packaged in a decision support system that makes it easy for managers and stakeholders to use. Simulation results show that flow can be regulated to substantially reduce salinity intrusions in the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, while conserving more water in the reservoirs. A method for using the model to assess the effectiveness of

There is a growing global concern about future water supplies. Growing demands from agriculture, industry and urban growth are streching available water supplies while pollution is undermining the quality of the resource base. Physical data available indicate that in South Africa, full utilisation o

The Water Observation and Information System (WOIS) is an open source software tool for monitoring, assessing and inventorying waterresources in a cost-effective manner using Earth Observation (EO) data. The WOIS has been developed by, among others, the authors of this paper under the TIGER...... to cross-border basin levels through the provision of a free and powerful software package, with associated capacity building, to African authorities. More than 28 EO data processing solutions for waterresourcemanagement tasks have been developed, in correspondence with the requirements...... of the participating key African water authorities, and demonstrated with dedicated case studies utilizing the software in operational scenarios. They cover a wide range of themes and information products, including basin-wide characterization of land and waterresources, lake water quality monitoring, hydrological...

Cockpit resourcemanagement which is a multifaceted concept is outlined. The system involves the effective coordination of many resources: aircraft systems, company, air traffic control, equipment, navigational aids, documents, and manuals. The main concept, however, is group interaction. Problems which arise from lack of coordination, decision making, and lack of communication are pointed out. Implementation by the regional airline industry of cockpit resourcemanagement, designed to deal with human interactions problems in the most cost effective manner, is discussed.

Freshwater resources are becoming increasingly limited in many parts of the world, and decision makers are demanding new tools for monitoring water availability and rates of consumption. Remotely sensed thermal-infrared imagery collected by Landsat provides estimates of land-surface temperature tha...

This book is based on the research into natural resource (NR)-conflict carried out between 1997 and 2000 in the Dolakha district of central Nepal, and in several reference sites around the country. The study focussed especially on land, water and forest/pasture conflicts and their resolution/managem

This book is based on the research into natural resource (NR)-conflict carried out between 1997 and 2000 in the Dolakha district of central Nepal, and in several reference sites around the country. The study focussed especially on land, water and forest/pasture conflicts and their

In peri-urban areas competition among domestic, municipal, industrial and agriculture water use is strong and calls for identification of alternatives to bridge the widening gap between required and available waterresources. In this study, the RIver BAsin SIMulation (RIBASIM) model is applied to ex

Water is the material basis of man's living. It cannot be substituted. In addition, it is the life line of agriculture and even the national economy. However, waterresources face very serious situation in our country. It is shown that waterresources are in short and the water pollution is becoming more and more serious day by day. The reason for the problem of waterresources'is the management problem of waterresources. Besides, the per capita waterresource is low because the population is increasingly serious. The industrialization of waterresources is a new conception presented due to the deepening of the social labor division and the demands of the mitigating contradiction of waterresources. This paper analyzes the present situation of waterresources in our country and the reasons for the problems. It expounds the important significance of the industrialization of management of waterresources. Then it puts forward some suggestions for the management of the industry of waterresources, and some measure to solve those problems.

The main objective of this work is to help the management of training resources for students using a pedagogical network available at the Medical School of Rennes. With the increase of the number of connections and the number of medical documents available on this network, the management of new contents requires a lot of efforts for the webmaster. In order to improve the management of the resources, we implemented an automatic web engine for teachers, able to manage the links for the most interesting resources for their practice.

Assessments of potential impacts of climate change on waterresources are generally based on the use of downscaled climate scenarios to force hydrological models and hence estimate the changes in natural water availability in comparison to baseline conditions. This framework, however, suffers from various sources of uncertainty. First, climate models have large uncertainty associated with key climate variables such as precipitation. Second, downscaling approaches are based on several assumptions, which degrade their prediction capability for future conditions. Third, hydrological models are associated with a set of limitations due to lack of process understanding and data support as well as structural and parametric identifiability. As a result, given a particular waterresource system and a certain scenario of climate change, different combinations of climate/downscaling/hydrological models may result in very different estimates of future water availability. Moreover, using the 'cascade of models approach', limited insights into the waterresource system response to potential hydrological changes in the flow regime are obtained. We argue that there is merit in an alternative approach in which the vulnerability in waterresource system response to a feasible range of future inflows is evaluated. We develop a stochastic reconstruction framework that generates a large ensemble of perturbed flow series at the local scale to represent a range of potential flow responses to climate change. This approach is generic and can provide insight into critical thresholds beyond which changes in the natural streamflow regime can initiate stress in the system. It can also provide the basis for assessment of specific realizations of future scenarios, which can be located on a vulnerability map. The methodology is applied to the existing waterresource system of the South Saskatchewan river in southern Alberta, Canada, to explore the system's vulnerability to potential changes in

Many attempts to implement resourcemanagement initiatives in Canadian and international communities have been resisted by stakeholders despite inclusion of their representatives in the decision-making process. Managers' failure to understand stakeholders' perspectives when proposing initiatives is a potential cause of this resistance. Our study uses marketing thought to enhance stakeholder theory by bringing in an audience-centric perspective. We attempt to understand how stakeholders perceive their interests in an organization and consequently decide how to influence that organization. By doing so, we investigate whether a disconnect exists between the perceptions of managers and those of stakeholders. Natural resourcemanagers can utilize this knowledge to garner stakeholder support for the organization and its activities. We support this claim with findings from a water transfer plebiscite held in the Canadian province of Alberta. Sixteen personal interviews employing narrative inquiry were conducted to document voters' (i.e., irrigators') interpretations.

This study investigated the effect of increasing population and changing climatic conditions on the waterresources of a semi-arid region, the Las Vegas Valley (LVV) in southern Nevada. A system dynamics model was developed for the LVV from 1989 to 2035. The impact of climate change on water demand and the water supply from the Colorado River was modeled, using projections from 16 global climate models for 3 emission scenarios. Variability in water demand and supply under different scenarios of population growth and demand management, including water conservation and water pricing, was evaluated. With the population growth that was projected, if no further demand management policies were implemented, the LVV would not be able to meet the water demand in the near future. However, by combining water conservation and pricing policies, the available supply could last well into the future. The reduction in water demand in 2035 was predicted to be 327 million cubic meters (MCM) for 'status quo' population growth, or 30.6%; 408 MCM for 50% of the projected growth, or 38%; and 511 MCM for no population growth, or 47.8%. Water supply reliability decreased significantly with changing climatic conditions. Therefore, major challenges to water sustainability in the LVV would be due to rapid population growth as well as to climate variability. However, with the combination of reduced population growth rate and water conservation policies, the Colorado River supply could meet the future demand of the LVV most of the time.

In recent years, governmental institutes have started to use citizen science as a form of public participation. The Dutch water authorities are among them. They face pressure on the water governance system and a water awareness gap among the general public, and consider citizen science a possible solution. The reasons for practitioners to engage in citizen science, and in particular those of government practitioners, have seldom been studied. This article aims to pinpoint the various viewpoints of practitioners at Dutch regional water authorities on citizen science. A Q-methodological approach was used because it allows for exploration of viewpoints and statistical analysis using a small sample size. Practitioners (33) at eight different water authorities ranked 46 statements from agree to disagree. Three viewpoints were identified with a total explained variance of 67 %. Viewpoint A considers citizen science a potential solution that can serve several purposes, thereby encouraging citizen participation in data collection and analysis. Viewpoint B considers citizen science a method for additional, illustrative data. Viewpoint C views citizen science primarily as a means of education. These viewpoints show water practitioners in the Netherlands are willing to embrace citizen science at water authorities, although there is no support for higher levels of citizen engagement.

The California Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is the hub for California's water supply, conveying water from Northern to Southern California agriculture and communities while supporting important ecosystem services, agriculture, and communities in the Delta. Changes in climate, long-term drought, water quality changes, and expansion of invasive aquatic plants threatens ecosystems, impedes ecosystem restoration, and is economically, environmentally, and sociologically detrimental to the San Francisco Bay/California Delta complex. NASA Ames Research Center and the USDA-ARS partnered with the State of California and local governments to develop science-based, adaptive-management strategies for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The project combines science, operations, and economics related to integrated management scenarios for aquatic weeds to help land and waterway managers make science-informed decisions regarding management and outcomes. The team provides a comprehensive understanding of agricultural and urban land use in the Delta and the major water sheds (San Joaquin/Sacramento) supplying the Delta and interaction with drought and climate impacts on the environment, water quality, and weed growth. The team recommends conservation and modified land-use practices and aids local Delta stakeholders in developing management strategies. New remote sensing tools have been developed to enhance ability to assess conditions, inform decision support tools, and monitor management practices. Science gaps in understanding how native and invasive plants respond to altered environmental conditions are being filled and provide critical biological response parameters for Delta-SWAT simulation modeling. Operational agencies such as the California Department of Boating and Waterways provide testing and act as initial adopter of decision support tools. Methods developed by the project can become routine land and watermanagement tools in complex river delta systems.

Managingwater for sustainable use and economic development is both a technical and a governance challenge in which knowledge production and sharing play a central role. This article evaluates and compares the role of participatory governance and scientific information in decision-making in four basins in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, and the United States. Watermanagement institutions in each of the basins have evolved during the last 10-20 years from a relatively centralized water-management structure at the state or national level to a decision structure that involves engaging water users within the basins and the development of participatory processes. This change is consistent with global trends in which states increasingly are expected to gain public acceptance for larger water projects and policy changes. In each case, expanded citizen engagement in identifying options and in decision-making processes has resulted in more complexity but also has expanded the culture of integrated learning. International funding for water infrastructure has been linked to requirements for participatory management processes, but, ironically, this study finds that participatory processes appear to work better in the context of decisions that are short-term and easily adjusted, such as water-allocation decisions, and do not work so well for longer-term, high-stakes decisions regarding infrastructure. A second important observation is that the costs of capacity building to allow meaningful stakeholder engagement in water-management decision processes are not widely recognized. Failure to appreciate the associated costs and complexities may contribute to the lack of successful engagement of citizens in decisions regarding infrastructure.

Risk assessment for waterresource planning must deal with the uncertainty associated with excess/scarcity situations and their costs. The projected actions for increasing water security usually involve an indirect "call-effect": the territory occupation/water use is increased following the achieved protection. In this work, flood and water demand in a mountainous semi-arid watershed in southern Spain are assessed by means of the stochastic simulation of extremes, when this human factor is/is not considered. The results show how not including this call-effect induced an underestimation of flood risk after protecting the floodplain of between 35 and 78 % in a 35-year planning horizon. Similarly, the pursued water availability of a new reservoir resulted in a 10-year scarcity risk increase up to 38 % when the trend of expanding the irrigated area was included in the simulations. These results highlight the need for including this interaction in the decision-making assessment.

The ongoing study on precipitation regime in the Croatian Drava River basin is intended to be used by decision makers in water and energy resourcemanagement. One side aspect of this study is the variability in daily and multi-daily amounts (2- and 5-days), the indices defined by WMO and amended by the end-users, which are critical for applications in assessment and maintenance of flooding. The daily rainfall series are from the period 1961-2000, collected at two rain gauges: Varazdin in the upper part of the Croatian Drava River basin and Osijek in the low one, not far from its mouse into the Danube River. The applied Gamma probability distribution makes it possible to estimate the likelihood of rainfall at different durations within a specific range. The generalized extreme value distribution is employed to compute the design values of annual maximal 1-, 2- and 5-day precipitation amounts with different return periods indicating at precipitation risk. In addition to the extreme precipitation characteristics of the current climate, the evolution of trends in annual maximal 1-, 2- and 5-day rainfall amounts are derived from linear regression during the period 1901-2007 at Osijek and for the both stations since 1951. Statistical significance at the 5% confidence level is established using the Mann-Kendall rank non-parametric test. The coefficients of variation, indicating interannual variability, are then computed for consecutive 30-year moving time windows (1 year step) for each parameter. Trends for 30-year periods with the 10-year step (1901-1930, 1911-1940, ....) were computed to detect the possible changes in variability. At the level of the synoptic measurements, the analysis of weather types related to the extreme rainfall events would be deduced.

Suncor's oil sands operations produce 225,000 bbl/day of crude oil products from Alberta's Fort McMurray area. Water is a key resource used for enhanced recovery methods to produce crude oil products from oil sands. A watermanagement strategy is required to monitor and control the amount of water used in the bitumen liberation process, cooling, the steam assisted gravity drainage process, steam for cogeneration, an energy transfer medium, a transportation medium, feedstock, and potable water. The watermanagement strategy is designed to manage both short and long term water issues and develop sustainable watermanagement strategies in an integrated manner. The strategy also encourages open communication on water to optimize synergy between operators, energy producers, and governments. The opportunities and challenges of a watermanagement strategy were outlined with reference to recycling opportunities, managingwater chemistry, and improving the ability to measure water use.

Growing water scarcity in agriculture is an increasing problem in future in many regions of the world. Recent trends of weather extremes in Saxony, Germany also enhance drought risks for agricultural production. In addition, signals of longer and more intense drought conditions during the vegetation period can be found in future regional climate scenarios for Saxony. However, those climate predictions are associated with high uncertainty and therefore, e.g. stochastic methods are required to analyze the impact of changing climate patterns on future crop water requirements and water availability. For assessing irrigation as a measure to increase agricultural water security a generalized stochastic approach for a spatial distributed estimation of future irrigation water demand is proposed, which ensures safe yields and a high water productivity at the same time. The developed concept of stochastic crop water production functions (SCWPF) can serve as a central decision support tool for both, (i) a cost benefit analysis of farm irrigation modernization on a local scale and (ii) a regional water demand management using a multi-scale approach for modeling and implementation. The new approach is applied using the example of a case study in Saxony, which is dealing with the sustainable management of future irrigation water demands and its implementation.

Full Text Available The Water Observation and Information System (WOIS is an open source software tool for monitoring, assessing and inventorying waterresources in a cost-effective manner using Earth Observation (EO data. The WOIS has been developed by, among others, the authors of this paper under the TIGER-NET project, which is a major component of the TIGER initiative of the European Space Agency (ESA and whose main goal is to support the African Earth Observation Capacity for WaterResource Monitoring. TIGER-NET aims to support the satellite-based assessment and monitoring of waterresources from watershed to cross-border basin levels through the provision of a free and powerful software package, with associated capacity building, to African authorities. More than 28 EO data processing solutions for waterresourcemanagement tasks have been developed, in correspondence with the requirements of the participating key African water authorities, and demonstrated with dedicated case studies utilizing the software in operational scenarios. They cover a wide range of themes and information products, including basin-wide characterization of land and waterresources, lake water quality monitoring, hydrological modeling and flood forecasting and mapping. For each monitoring task, step-by-step workflows were developed, which can either be adjusted by the user or largely automatized to feed into existing data streams and reporting schemes. The WOIS enables African water authorities to fully exploit the increasing EO capacity offered by current and upcoming generations of satellites, including the Sentinel missions.

Depending upon how people use land in a watershed, whether it be farming, livestock grazing, timber harvesting, mining, urbanization, or even recreation, all have significant impacts on the water moving through that watershed. This paper will focus on the urban watershed and how stormwater runoff from urbanization affects erosion, sedimentation, and water quality. It also will explore the potential of a watershed as the basis for managing and protecting waterresources. Watershed-based management offers a clear look at how land-use changes affect not only water quality but also erosion and sedimentation; in addition, this approach develops preventive strategies to restore those affected water and land resources. The preventive strategies the author uses for this watershed can be applied to other New Mexico urban watersheds. This paper is divided into three parts. The first part shows how past and present land-use activities affect erosion, sedimentation, and water quality in the Bear Canyon arroyo system. The second part provides solutions to the problems of soil erosion and stormwater pollution in the urban areas through government intervention. The third part discusses how Best Management Practices (BMPs) can be used to limit or reduce stormwater pollution in residential and industrial areas.

Population growth, high rates of economic development and rapid urbanization in the developing countries of Southeast Asia (SEA) have resulted in degradation and depletion of natural resources, including waterresources and related ecosystem services. Many urban rivers in the region are highly polluted with domestic, industrial and agricultural wastes. Policymakers are often aware of the direct value of waterresources for domestic and industrial consumption, but they often underestimate the indirect value of these functions, since they are not exchanged in the market and do not appear in national income accounts. Underestimation of pollution and over-exploitation of waterresources result in a loss of these benefits and have adverse impacts on nearby residents, threatening the long-term sustainable development of natural resources in the region. Behind these constraints lies a lack of knowledge (ignorance) from governments that a clean water environment could bring significant economic benefits. This study has been initiated to tackle this issue and to foster a more rational approach for sustainable urban development in Metro Manila in the Philippines. We applied a Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) based on Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) technique. Results show that users are willing to pay up to PHP 102.42 (2.18) monthly to improve quality of urban waterbodies whereas nonusers are willing to pay up to PHP 366.53 (7.80) as one-time payment towards water quality improvement. The estimated monetary value of water quality improvements would be a useful variable in cost-benefit analyses of various water quality-related policies, in both public and private sectors in Metro Manila. This survey design could serve as a useful template for similar water quality studies in other SEA countries.

The Conservation of coastal wetlands in the Mediterranean area is generally faced with development issues. It is the case of Tunisia where the precipitation is irregular in time and space. For the equity of water use (drinking, irrigation), there is a planning at the national level allowing the possibility of water transfer from regions rich in waterresources to poor ones. This plan was initially done in Tunisia without taking into account the wetlands ecosystems and their specificities. The main purpose of this study is to find a model able to integrate simultaneously available resources and various water demands within a watershed by taking into account the durability of related wetland ecosystems. It is the case of the Ichkeul basin. This later is situated in northern of Tunisia, having an area of 2080 km2 and rainfall of about 600 mm/year. Downstream this basin, the Ichkeul Lake is characterized by a double alternation of seasonal high water and low salinity in winter and spring and low water levels and high salinity in summer and autumn that makes the Ichkeul an exceptional ecosystem. The originality of this hydrological system of Lake-marsh conditions is related to the presence of aquatic vegetation in the lake and special rich and varied hygrophilic in the marshes that constitutes the main source of food for large migrating water birds. After the construction of three dams on the principle rivers that are feeding the Ichkeul Lake, aiming particularly to supply the local irrigation and the drinking water demand of cities in the north and the east of Tunisia, freshwater inflow to the lake is greatly reduced causing a hydrological disequilibrium that influences the ecological conditions of the different species. Therefore, to ensure the sustainability of the waterresourcesmanagement, it's important to find a trade off between the existing hydrological and ecological systems taking into account water demands of various users (drinking, irrigation fishing, and

Radar ResourceManagement (RRM) is vital for optimizing the performance of modern phased array radars, which are the primary sensor for aircraft, ships, and land platforms. Adaptive Radar ResourceManagement gives an introduction to radar resourcemanagement (RRM), presenting a clear overview of different approaches and techniques, making it very suitable for radar practitioners and researchers in industry and universities. Coverage includes: RRM's role in optimizing the performance of modern phased array radars The advantages of adaptivity in implementing RRMThe role that modelling and

This article is based on a comparative analysis of Russia and US’s experience of participation in international cooperation in the field of trans-boundary watermanagement. The author showcases the work of Russian-Estonian Commission for Protection and Rational Use of Trans-Boundary Waters and the US-Canadian International Joint Commission. The Russian-Estonian Commission works in accordance with the principle of intergovernmentalism, whereas transnationalism is the founding principle of the ...

Full Text Available An interval-parameter fuzzy linear programming with stochastic vertices (IFLPSV method is developed for waterresourcesmanagement under uncertainty by coupling interval-parameter fuzzy linear programming (IFLP with stochastic programming (SP. As an extension of existing interval parameter fuzzy linear programming, the developed IFLPSV approach has advantages in dealing with dual uncertainty optimization problems, which uncertainty presents as interval parameter with stochastic vertices in both of the objective functions and constraints. The developed IFLPSV method improves upon the IFLP method by allowing dual uncertainty parameters to be incorporated into the optimization processes. A hybrid intelligent algorithm based on genetic algorithm and artificial neural network is used to solve the developed model. The developed method is then applied to waterresources allocation in Beijing city of China in 2020, where waterresources shortage is a challenging issue. The results indicate that reasonable solutions have been obtained, which are helpful and useful for decision makers. Although the amount of water supply from Guanting and Miyun reservoirs is declining with rainfall reduction, water supply from the South-to-North Water Transfer project will have important impact on water supply structure of Beijing city, particularly in dry year and extraordinary dry year.

Full Text Available Water is a strategic, but also highly vulnerable, natural resource. This because the increasing demand from multiple uses, in many cases competing amongst them, seems to influence the concepts of sustainability of the exploitation. From the operational point of view, the studied system is an integrated decision support system. It is not only a platform to exchange information and assessments, but also a tool for conflict resolution, in the management of waterresources, to obtain the consensus among all participants in the decisional processes. So the canonical “top-down” approach has been replaced with a “bottom-up” approach where all stakeholders become decision makers themselves. The application of the aforementioned approach was studied for the Tiber River basin and has been applied to the Province of Perugia area. The study focused to the building of a spatial database of hydrological data and multipurpose water withdrawals, together with the setting of the evaluation model for the surface waterresources. This model bases its algorithms on regionalization procedures of flow parameters. For the definition of the river condition, hydrological indices calculated from the hydrological database have been used, while for the existing withdrawals, an analysis procedure has been developed, that from the point of interest directly selected on the map, finds out the upstream basin and, by means of overlay procedures, identifies the upstream water uses and the total flow that could be extracted. The potential of the system and the technologies used are contained in a WEB platform that allows the analysis of the database of water uses/withdrawals on the cartography, and the comparison with the hydrogeological characteristics of the sub-basin examined. The purpose of this study is to provide software tools that can be used as a support in waterresource evaluation and management policies at the basin scale.

The economy and environment of the Hertfordshire and North London Area (H&NL Area) within Thames River Basin rely on the limited waterresources in the region, especially groundwater. The waterresources in the area are managed, amongst other mechanisms, through water abstraction licences and discharge permits. Current management practice is not responsive or flexible enough to address future pressures. To support improving current watermanagement in the area, a Water Footprint Assessment (WFA) study was conducted. This is a pioneering work in the field of WFA applied in a regulatory context. The study deals with a high level of complexity in a number of aspects: 1) high spatial and temporal resolution (sub-catchment level and monthly time scale); 2) multiple water use sectors (industry, domestic and agriculture); 3) different sources of water for human use (surface and groundwater); 4) different types of human pressure on waterresources (consumption and pollution); 5) integrated assessment of water use sustainability (water scarcity and water pollution level); and 6) projected water footprint (WF) with water demand and climate change scenarios. The green, blue and grey WF on surface water, the blue and grey WF on groundwater of the 35 sub-catchments within the H&NL Area have been estimated for the domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors on a monthly basis. Blue water scarcity (BWS) and water pollution level (WPL) were evaluated to assess the sustainability of the blue and grey WF respectively, distinguishing between ground and surface water. A "wet" and "dry" climate change scenario for 2060 was used to project the WF components and BWS. This study identifies sub-catchments in the area facing moderate to severe BWS and/or WPLs and illustrates the relation between the two. The results demonstrate that WFA and in particular BWS and WPLs can and should form a basis for regulatory reform for waterresourcesmanagement. Levels of BWS in sub-catchments can

Full Text Available Clarification of initial water rights is the basis and prerequisite for a water rights trade-off market and also an effective solution to the problem of water scarcity and water conflicts. According to the new requirements for the most stringent waterresourcesmanagement in China, an initial provincial water rights allocation model is proposed. Firstly, based on analysis of multiple principles for initial provincial water rights allocation including total water use, water use efficiency, water quality of water function zones, regional coordination and sharing, an index system of initial provincial water rights allocation is designed. Secondly, according to dynamic projection pursuit technique, an initial provincial water rights allocation model with the total water use control is set up. Moreover, the self-adaptive chaotic optimization algorithm is applied to tackle the model. Finally, a case study of Taihu Basin is adopted. Considering the multiple scenarios of three different water frequencies (50%, 75% and 90% and planning year 2030, the empirical results show Jiangsu Province always obtains the most initial water rights. When the developing situation of provinces are given more consideration, Shanghai should acquire more initial water rights than Zhejiang Province; but when the dynamic increment evolving trend of provinces is taken more into account, Shanghai should obtain less initial water rights than Zhejiang Province. The case about Taihu Lake further verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model and provides a multiple-scenarios decision making support for entitling the initial water rights with the most stringent waterresourcesmanagement constrains in Taihu Basin.

The Handbook of Environmental Engineering series is an incredible collection of methodologies that study the effects of pollution and waste in their three basic forms: gas, solid, and liquid. This exciting new addition to the series, Volume 15: Modern WaterResources Engineering , has been designed to serve as a waterresources engineering reference book as well as a supplemental textbook. We hope and expect it will prove of equal high value to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, to designers of waterresources systems, and to scientists and researchers. A critical volume in the Handbook of Environmental Engineering series, chapters employ methods of practical design and calculation illustrated by numerical examples, include pertinent cost data whenever possible, and explore in great detail the fundamental principles of the field. Volume 15: Modern WaterResources Engineering, provides information on some of the most innovative and ground-breaking advances in the field today from a panel of esteemed...

Collaboration is increasingly seen as an important aspect of successful watermanagement, and yet it remains insufficiently understood. This paper examines how collaboration is influenced by the governance system that guides and organizes the related actions and interactions. Building upon an existi

With the rapid increase of world population and food demand, the demand for waterresources is also increasing. At the same time shifts in rain patterns due to global climate change make the waterresources situation more uncertain. A global water crisis can therefore not be excluded. The socio-economic and environmental problems induced by such a water crisis are especially prominent in arid and semiarid regions. The Yanqi Basin in Xinjiang province is a typical case study in China's arid and semi-arid areas, where rainfall is scarce and evaporation is extremely high. Thus its waterresources have been under great pressure to satisfy the increasing water demand of agriculture and urban and industrial expansion in the last decades. The development has been accompanied by a number of environmental problems. Yanqi Basin is an important cultivated area which is irrigated by water diverted from rivers. Because of the long-term flood irrigation and an inefficient drainage system, the groundwater level under the cultivated area rose, accelerating the phreatic evaporation and leading to increased soil salinization. Simultaneously, the water quantity and quality of Boston Lake have been impaired in past years because of the decreased river discharge and the increased salt flux contained in the drainage discharge. Thus the ecosystems depending on the inflow to and outflow from the lake suffered. The riverine forests in the downstream area were degraded due to declining groundwater levels, and aquatic life as well as downstream water users had to cope with deteriorating water quality. The big challenge for decision makers in the basin is how to balance the justified requirements of agriculture, industrial development and the ecosystem. In order to provide a scientific basis to the decision making process, a scenario analysis was adopted. Here several scenarios are proposed: the basic scenario, scenario 1, describes the status of the year 2008. A second scenario maximizes the

Uncertainties exist in the waterresources system, while traditional two-stage stochastic programming is risk-neutral and compares the random variables (e.g., total benefit) to identify the best decisions. To deal with the risk issues, a risk-aversion inexact two-stage stochastic programming model is developed for waterresourcesmanagement under uncertainty. The model was a hybrid methodology of interval-parameter programming, conditional value-at-risk measure, and a general two-stage stochastic programming framework. The method extends on the traditional two-stage stochastic programming method by enabling uncertainties presented as probability density functions and discrete intervals to be effectively incorporated within the optimization framework. It could not only provide information on the benefits of the allocation plan to the decision makers but also measure the extreme expected loss on the second-stage penalty cost. The developed model was applied to a hypothetical case of waterresourcesmanagement. Results showed that that could help managers generate feasible and balanced risk-aversion allocation plans, and analyze the trade-offs between system stability and economy.

The Aconcagua River Basin in central Chile supplies water for over one million people, high-return agriculture, mining and hydropower industries. The Aconcagua river basin has Mediterranean/semi-arid climate, its hydrologic regime varies along its path from snow- to a rainfall-dominated, and significant stream-aquifer interaction is observed throughout the river path. A complex water market operates in the Aconcagua River Basin, where private owners hold surface and subsurface water rights independently of land ownership and/or intended use. The above yield integrated watershed management critical for the sustainability of basin operations, moreover under conditions of significant precipitation interannual variability and uncertain future climatic scenarios. In this work we propose an integrated hydrologic-operational model for the Aconcagua River in order to evaluate sustainable management scenarios under conditions of climatic uncertainty. The modeling software WEAP (Water Evaluation and Planning System) serves as the platform for decision support, allowing the assessment of diverse scenarios of water use development and hydrologic conditions. The hydrologic component of the adopted model utilizes conceptual functions for describing the relations between different hydrologic variables. The management component relies on economic valuation for characterizing the space of efficient operational policies.

The development of irrigated agriculture is necessary for fulfilling the rising food requirements of the burgeoning global population. However, the intensification of irrigated agriculture causes the twin menace of waterlogging and soil salinization in arid and semiarid regions where more than 75% of the world's population lives. These problems can be managed by either adopting preventive measures which decrease the inflow of water and salt or by employing remedial measures which increase the outflow. This paper presents an overview of various measures used for the management of waterlogging and salinity problems. The background, processes involved, and severity of waterlogging and salinity problems are provided. The role of drainage systems, conjunctive use of different water sources, use of computer-based mathematical models, and the use of remote sensing and GIS techniques in managing the problems are discussed. Conclusions are provided which could be useful for all the stakeholders.

Ever growing demand for water for agricultural activities in the Izeh Plain has enhanced the use of groundwater. Due to enormous groundwater abstraction since 1985, the overall static water level has receded by more than 5 meters reflecting that the aquifer is under stress condition. As a result, interest is focused on application of artificial recharge as an option for groundwater management to augment water supply in this area. Therefore, in the present investigations, suitable sites for artificial recharge were selected by an integrated surface and sub-surface assessment of the area. On the basis of the data collected from four target points, it was realized that the selected sites for artificial recharge could not meet water demand of the area. In this study attention was also paid to utilization of the existing Miangran Lake water as an alternative to combat water shortage for irrigation. The study further indicated that the available Miangran Lake water could be used for irrigation of the reclaimed agricultural land and enabling to convert 2000 hectares of rain-fed land into irrigation. The total cost to utilize lake water is USS 9,756,729 and it was estimated that the project could recoup the investment within 5 years which is quite reasonable in this water scarcity prone area.

Oil spill in fresh water can affect ecological processes and accordingly it can influence human health. Iran, due to having 58.8 % of the world oil reserves, is highly vulnerable to water contamination by oil products. The aim of this study was to determine environmental factors affecting the management of the oil spill into one of the river in Iran using the PESTLE analysis. This was a qualitative case study conducted in 2015 on an oil spill incident in Iran and its roots from a disaster management approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted for data collection. Seventy managers and staffs with those responsible or involved in oil spill incident management were recruited to the study. Qualitative content analysis approach was employed for the data analysis. Document analysis was used to collect additional information. Findings of the present study indicated that different factors affected the management of the event of oil spill onto one of the central river and consequently the management of drink waterresources. Using this analysis, managers can plan for such events and develop scenarios for them to have better performance for the future events.

In a rapidly changing waterresources system, dynamic models based on the notion of systems thinking can serve as useful analytical tools for scientists and policy-makers to study changes in key system variables over time. In this paper, an integrated system dynamics simulation model was developed using a system dynamics modelling approach to examine the feedback processes and interaction between the population, the waterresource, and the agricultural production sub-sectors of the Volta River Basin in West Africa. The objective of the model is to provide a learning tool for policy-makers to improve their understanding of the long-term dynamic behaviour of the basin, and as a decision support tool for exploring plausible policy scenarios necessary for sustainable waterresourcemanagement and agricultural development. Structural and behavioural pattern tests, and statistical test were used to evaluate and validate the performance of the model. The results showed that the simulated outputs agreed well with the observed reality of the system. A sensitivity analysis also indicated that the model is reliable and robust to uncertainties in the major parameters. Results of the business as usual scenario showed that total population, agricultural, domestic, and industrial water demands will continue to increase over the simulated period. Besides business as usual, three additional policy scenarios were simulated to assess their impact on water demands, crop yield, and net-farm income. These were the development of the water infrastructure (scenario 1), cropland expansion (scenario 2) and dry conditions (scenario 3). The results showed that scenario 1 would provide the maximum benefit to people living in the basin. Overall, the model results could help inform planning and investment decisions within the basin to enhance food security, livelihoods development, socio-economic growth, and sustainable management of natural resources.

Efficient and sustainable irrigation systems require optimization of operational parameters such as irrigation amount which are dependent on the soil hydraulic parameters that affect the model's accuracy in simulating soil water content. However, it is a scientific challenge to provide reliable estimates of soil hydraulic parameters and irrigation estimates, given the absence of continuously operating soil moisture and rain gauge network. For agricultural waterresourcemanagement, the in-situ measurements of soil moisture are currently limited to discrete measurements at specific locations, and such point-based measurements do not represent the spatial distribution at a larger scale accurately, as soil moisture is highly variable both spatially and temporally (Wang and Qu 2009). In the current study, flood irrigation scheme within the land surface model is triggered when the root-zone soil moisture deficit reaches below a threshold of 25%, 50% and 75% with respect to the maximum available water capacity (difference between field capacity and wilting point) and applied until the top layer is saturated. An additional important criterion needed to activate the irrigation scheme is to ensure that it is irrigation season by assuming that the greenness vegetation fraction (GVF) of the pixel exceed 0.40 of the climatological annual range of GVF (Ozdogan et al. 2010). The main hypothesis used in this study is that near-surface remote sensing soil moisture data contain useful information that can describe the effective hydrological conditions of the basin such that when appropriately inverted, it would provide field capacity and wilting point soil moisture, which may be representative of that basin. Thus, genetic algorithm inverse method is employed to derive the effective parameters and derive the soil moisture deficit for the root zone by coupling of AMSR-E soil moisture with the physically based hydrological model. Model performance is evaluated using MODIS

This study presents an application of a well-calibrated integrative hydro-ecological model to examine waterresourcesmanagement in the upper and middle parts of the Yellow River basin, an arid and semiarid area in northwestern China. The hydro-ecological model was developed to simulate dynamic and accumulative hydrologic, ecologic, and economic variables at different spatial units. Four watermanagement scenarios based on water use priorities, a business-as-usual scenario, an ecological scenario, an irrigation use efficiency scenario and water use scenario were designed and modeled over the period of 2011-2020 to reflect alternative watermanagement pathways to the future. Waterresource conditions were assessed in terms streamfiow, actual evapotranspiration,soil water, groundwater yield, overall water yield, and derived indicator of drought index. Unit crop yield was to assess ecological production, and monetary values of crop productivity and water productivity were used to assess economic output. Scenario analysis results suggested that water stress would continue in the study region under both current water use patterns and ecological scenarios of river flow being fully satisfied. Water use scenarios would result in decreased water availability and ecosystem degradation in the long mn. Improving irrigation use efficiency would be the most efficient approach in securing long-term water and food supply. The simulation results from this study provided useful information for evaluating long-term waterresourcesmanagement strategies, and will contribute to the knowledge of interdisciplinary modeling for waterresourcesmanagement in the study region.

Alberta's booming oil and gas industry has led to concerns over land and water use in the province. This forum provided a venue for the discussion of issues related to water and land use in Alberta. Various strategies for land use planning were evaluated. Regulatory frameworks for water and land pollution abatement were considered along with strategies for reducing the environmental impacts of oil and gas resource development in the province. The Wildlife, Habitat, and Species at Risk Act was discussed, as well as issues related to Canada's new endangered species laws. Issues concerning water scarcity and stakeholder relations were discussed. Various watermanagement strategies were evaluated. One of the 14 presentations featured at this conference has been catalogued separately for inclusion in this database. refs., tabs., figs.

Future waterresourcemanagement is of primary importance to society, economy and the environment. Planning for climate change and adapting to those changes, which requires an understanding of the complex consequences of climate change for the hydrology and human and environmental uses of water, is important for a sustainable future. This research study holistically explored possible implications of global climate change and regional socioeconomic change on waterresourcemanag...

水资源管理模式是提高水资源动态管理的有效方式,为水资源高效配置和合理利用提供技术支撑.针对黑河流域水资源利用现状与存在的问题,分析和探讨了基于生态需水、水权框架、模拟模型和水资源信息系统的黑河流域水资源管理模式,展望了未来流域水资源发展方向.指出在未来应加强人类活动影响下流域水资源污染研究,流域地表水与地下水联合调度管理和水资源合理配置与流域集成管理研究.%The pattern of waterresourcesmanagement is an effective mode for improving waterresource dynamic management, and offering technical support for waterresource high - effective collocation and rational use. Based on the status and problems of waterresources, the patterns of waterresourcesmanagement of ecological water requirement, water rights system, simulation model and waterresources information system in Heihe river basin were analyzed and discussed. The trends of waterresources development were prospected. It proposed that impact of human activities on waterresources pollution, surface water and groundwater conjunctive regulation management and reasonable waterresources allocation and integrated waterresourcesmanagement in basin scale should be studied in the future in Heihe river basin.

The University of California has been conducting an investigation which seeks to determine the usefulness of modern remote sensing techniques for studying various components of California's earth resources complex. Most of the work has concentrated on California's waterresources, but with some attention being given to other earth resources as well and to the interplay between them and California's waterresources.

The fate of the terrestrial biosphere is highly uncertain given recent and projected changes in climate. This is especially acute for impacts associated with changes in drought frequency and intensity on the distribution and timing of water availability. The development of effective adaptation strategies for these emerging threats to food and water security are compromised by limitations in our understanding of how natural and managed ecosystems are responding to changing hydrological and climatological regimes. This information gap is exacerbated by insufficient monitoring capabilities from local to global scales. Here, we describe how evapotranspiration (ET) represents the key variable in linking ecosystem functioning, carbon and climate feedbacks, agricultural management, and waterresources, and highlight both the outstanding science and applications questions and the actions, especially from a space-based perspective, necessary to advance them.

The fate of the terrestrial biosphere is highly uncertain given recent and projected changes in climate. This is especially acute for impacts associated with changes in drought frequency and intensity on the distribution and timing of water availability. The development of effective adaptation strategies for these emerging threats to food and water security are compromised by limitations in our understanding of how natural and managed ecosystems are responding to changing hydrological and climatological regimes. This information gap is exacerbated by insufficient monitoring capabilities from local to global scales. Here, we describe how evapotranspiration (ET) represents the key variable in linking ecosystem functioning, carbon and climate feedbacks, agricultural management, and waterresources, and highlight both the outstanding science and applications questions and the actions, especially from a space-based perspective, necessary to advance them. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

The fate of the terrestrial biosphere is highly uncertain given recent and projected changes in climate. This is especially acute for impacts associated with changes in drought frequency and intensity on the distribution and timing of water availability. The development of effective adaptation strategies for these emerging threats to food and water security are compromised by limitations in our understanding of how natural and managed ecosystems are responding to changing hydrological and climatological regimes. This information gap is exacerbated by insufficient monitoring capabilities from local to global scales. Here, we describe how evapotranspiration (ET) represents the key variable in linking ecosystem functioning, carbon and climate feedbacks, agricultural management, and waterresources, and highlight both the outstanding science and applications questions and the actions, especially from a space-based perspective, necessary to advance them.

为适应中央生态文明建设、国家经济转型升级、实行最严格水资源管理制度和深化水利改革等国家与行业发展的新形势及对水资源管理的新要求，在总结长江流域取水许可管理、水资源配置和调度管理、水资源监测评估、流域最严格水资源管理制度试点等工作的基础上，分析了长江流域水资源管理面临的形势和存在的突出问题，结合长江流域近期水资源管理的总体思路，提出了推进流域水资源综合管理的建议。%For adapting to new requirements of national ecological civilization construction, economic transformation and upgra-ding, implementation of the most stringent waterresourcesmanagement system and deepening the reform of waterresourcesman-agement, on the basis of experience summarization of waterresourcesmanagement of Yangtze River Basin in the aspects of water licensing, waterresources allocation and dispatching, waterresource monitoring and assessment, pilot implementation of the most stringent waterresourcesmanagement system etc. , the situation of waterresourcesmanagement and the existed prominent prob-lems in the basin are analyzed. With the combination of general strategy for waterresourcesmanagement of the basin in the near future, the suggestions on promoting the integrated management of waterresourcesmanagement of Yangtze River Basin are put forward.

A study was made to establish the requirements for an integrated state-wide information management system for water quality control and water quality rights for the State of California. The data sources and end requirements were analyzed for the data collected and used by the numerous agencies, both State and Federal, as well as the nine Regional Boards under the jurisdiction of the State Board. The report details the data interfaces and outlines the system design. A program plan and statement of work for implementation of the project is included.

A hydro-economic modelling approach is used to optimize reservoir management at river basin level. We demonstrate the potential of this integrated approach on the Ziya River basin, a complex basin on the North China Plain south-east of Beijing. The area is subject to severe water scarcity due to low and extremely seasonal precipitation, and the intense agricultural production is highly dependent on irrigation. Large reservoirs provide water storage for dry months while groundwater and the external South-to-North Water Transfer Project are alternative sources of water. An optimization model based on stochastic dynamic programming has been developed. The objective function is to minimize the total cost of supplying water to the users, while satisfying minimum ecosystem flow constraints. Each user group (agriculture, domestic and industry) is characterized by fixed demands, fixed water allocation costs for the different water sources (surface water, groundwater and external water) and fixed costs of water supply curtailment. The multiple reservoirs in the basin are aggregated into a single reservoir to reduce the dimensions of decisions. Water availability is estimated using a hydrological model. The hydrological model is based on the Budyko framework and is forced with 51 years of observed daily rainfall and temperature data. 23 years of observed discharge from an in-situ station located downstream a remote mountainous catchment is used for model calibration. Runoff serial correlation is described by a Markov chain that is used to generate monthly runoff scenarios to the reservoir. The optimal costs at a given reservoir state and stage were calculated as the minimum sum of immediate and future costs. Based on the total costs for all states and stages, water value tables were generated which contain the marginal value of stored water as a function of the month, the inflow state and the reservoir state. The water value tables are used to guide allocation decisions in

水资源短缺是世界面临的共同危机,是制约国民经济健康稳定发展的重要“瓶颈”,水资源的可持续利用已经成为经济社会可持续发展的基础性、战略性问题.缓解水资源供需矛盾的关键是加强水资源的管理.文章回顾了中国水资源管理制度的发展演变历程:只管工程的非正式水资源管理、行政命令为主的正式制度萌芽、取水许可管理和基于水权的正规制度管理等四个阶段.尽管在确立以流域管理和区域管理相结合的综合管理体制,建立以水量分配、取水许可、水资源论证为主要内容的水权管理制度和以全成本核算为原则的水价管理制度等方面成绩显著,水资源管理中仍存在水资源权属不清、水环境权得不到保障等问题.今后中国水资源改革,首先应继续深化水权改革,推动水权明晰化,建立水权交易制度；其次,健全水环境权的法律法制规范,提供相关的法律保障；最后,完善部门间的合作协调机制,真正实现对水的协同管理.%Water scarcity is a crisis facing the world together, and is a bottleneck restricting the healthy and stable development of economy. Water sustainable use has already become the foundational and strategic question of sustainable development. For alleviating the waterresources supply and demand contradictory, watermanagement is the key. This paper reviews the institutional evolution of China's watermanagement system by four phases; an informal resourcemanagement just for engineering projects; administration-by-command under planning economy system with some buds of formal arrangements; water withdrawal licensing management;the formal system of management based on water rights. Despite of significant achievements in administrative management, water prices and water rights institutional reform, there are still many problems in watermanagement, such as unclear water rights, breach of duty of government

This comprehensive Natural ResourceManagement Plan (NRMP) for Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) was built on the successful foundation of the Wildlife Management Plan for BNL, which it replaces. This update to the 2003 plan continues to build on successes and efforts to better understand the ecosystems and natural resources found on the BNL site. The plan establishes the basis for managing the varied natural resources located on the 5,265-acre BNL site, setting goals and actions to achieve those goals. The planning of this document is based on the knowledge and expertise gained over the past 15 years by the Natural Resourcesmanagement staff at BNL in concert with local natural resource agencies including the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Long Island Pine Barrens Joint Planning and Policy Commission, The Nature Conservancy, and others. The development of this plan works toward sound ecological management that not only benefits BNL’s ecosystems but also benefits the greater Pine Barrens habitats in which BNL is situated. This plan applies equally to the Upton Ecological and Research Reserve (Upton Reserve). Any difference in management between the larger BNL area and the Upton Reserve are noted in the text.

Full Text Available Climate projections agree on a dryer and warmer future for the Mediterranean. Consequently, the region is likely to face serious problems regarding water availability and quality in the future. We investigated potential climate change impacts, alone (for three scenario periods and in combination with four socio-economic scenarios (for the near future on waterresources in a Mediterranean catchment, whose economy relies on irrigated agriculture and tourism. For that, the Soil and Water Integrated Model (SWIM was applied to the drainage area of the Mar Menor coastal lagoon, using a set of 15 climate scenarios and different land use maps and management settings. We assessed the long-term average seasonal and annual changes in generated runoff, groundwater recharge and actual evapotranspiration in the catchment, as well as on water inflow and nutrients input to the lagoon. The projected average annual changes in precipitation are small for the first scenario period, and so are the simulated impacts on all investigated components, on average. The negative trend of potential climate change impacts on waterresources (i.e., decrease in all analyzed components becomes pronounced in the second and third scenario periods. The applied socio-economic scenarios intensify, reduce or even reverse the climate-induced impacts, depending on the assumed land use and management changes.

Integrated modeling is a novel approach to couple knowledge and models from different disciplines and research fields and to use their potential in the strategic planning of watermanagement at the river basin scale. The MOSDEW integrated regional model has been developed in the Neckar basin, a 14,000 km 2 river catchment in South-West Germany as a model cascade of nine submodels covering large scale hydrology, groundwater flow, water demand, agricultural production, point and non-point pollution and chemical as well as biological water quality. The models are being tested and validated in the Neckar basin as well as in additional river basins in West Africa (Ouémé basin) and Central Asia (Chirchik-Ahangaran-Keles basin, CHAB) with contrasting ecological, hydrological and socio-economic boundary conditions. The transfer to the CHAB basin required changes in the submodel selection and integration structure due to the strong anthropogenic modifications of the flow regime in the downstream area. There, water is conveyed from the Chirchik river to other catchments and distributed in a complex channel system to satisfy the demand of competing water users (irrigation, urban water supply, energy production). In the Ouémé basin, the ecohydraulic model was not integrated due to lack of input data for ecological requirements of fish species whereas the groundwater flow model was not applicable to the predominant presence of aquifers in fractured rock. The model results obtained so far are promising with respect to their accuracy to be used in scenario simulations for the strategic basin wide planning of watermanagement.

The NASA Applied Sciences program provides technical capacity building activities to enable decision-makers to integrate NASA Earth Science into environmental management activities. This includes workshops tailored to end-user needs by working directly with agencies to 1) identify environmental management activities that could benefit from NASA Earth Science and 2) conducting workshops that teach the NASA products and decision-support tools best suited to the identified application area. Building on a successful 3-year effort on air pollution monitoring for environmental applications, the project has expanded into waterresources. Climate Change has dramatically increased demand for observational and predictive data in support of decision making activities related to water supply and demand. However, a gap remains between NASA products and applied research and the entities who stand to benefit from their utilization. To fill this gap, the project has developed short courses on 1) impacts of climate change on waterresources 2) hands-on exercises on access and interpretation of NASA imagery relevant to waterresourcesmanagement via the use of decision-support web tools and software and 3) case studies on the application of NASA products in the field. The program is currently focused on two areas 1) precipitation products over the central and southern U.S. that help communities and agencies improve flooding forecasts and 2) snow and snow/water equivalent products over the western U.S and Latin America that can provide end-users with improved stream flow prediction in Spring within a framework of decreasing snow availability.

Full Text Available This study investigates business engagement in sustainable watermanagement, focusing on water footprint accounting as a tool to account for water use in food supply chains. An explorative analysis is conducted on the Barilla Company. The study explores two corporate strategies aimed at achieving more sustainable water use: the adoption of environmental products declarations (EPDs, a reporting system that accounts for the environmental footprints of Barilla’s pasta and other products; and the implementation of the Aureo Wheat Programme. The study deployed both primary and secondary data. The study shows that the largest share of the water footprint of pasta relates to the cultivation phase (over 90%, which is almost fully rainfed. EPDs show that the water footprint of the other phases of the supply chain is negligible. It is argued that the use of water footprinting in EPDs can raise awareness about water use in agricultural supply chains to reach a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including consumers. The study also shows that the implementation of the Aureo Wheat Programme, consisting of a shift in cultivation site and in the type of wheat, enabled a reduction in the blue water footprint of pasta, with water savings amounting to 35 million m3 of blue water since 2011.

Urban development has radically transformed landscapes, and along with it, how our cities and suburbs cycle energy and water. One unfortunate outcome of urbanization is the production of massive volumes of uncontrolled runoff volume. Our civic infrastructure is sometimes marginally capable of handling even dry-weather fluxes without wastewater system overflows, much less the challenges of wet-weather events. The predominance of runoff volume in urban water balance has had serious ramifications for regulatory activity, municipal financial matters, and public health. In the interest of protecting human health and the environment, my group's research has primarily addressed the integration of social equity, economic stabilization, and environmental management to underpin the development of sustainable urban water cycles. In this talk, I will present on: 1) the Shepherd Creek Stormwater Management project wherein an economic incentive was used to recruit citizen stormwater managers and distribute parcel-level, green infrastructure-based stormwater control measures; and 2) our urban soil pedologic-hydrologic assessment protocol that we use as a way of understanding the capacity for urban soils to provide ecosystem services, and in cities representing each of the major soil orders.

This study focuses on the potential role of technical and institutional innovations for improving watermanagement in a multi-user context in Burkina Faso. We focus on a system centered on three reservoirs that capture the waters of the Upper Comoé River Basin and servicing a diversity of users, including a sugar manufacturing company, a urban water supply utility, a farmer cooperative, and other downstream users. Due to variable and declining rainfall and expanding users' needs, drastic fluctuations in water supply and demand occur during each dry season. A decision support tool was developed through participatory research to enable users to assess the impact of alternative release and diversion schedules on deficits faced by each user. The tool is meant to be applied in the context of consultative planning by a local user committee that has been created by a new national integrated watermanagement policy. We contend that both solid science and good governance are instrumental in realizing efficient and equitable watermanagement and adaptation to climate variability and change. But, while modeling tools and negotiation platforms may assist users in managing climate risk, they also introduce additional uncertainties into the deliberative process. It is therefore imperative to understand how these technological and institutional innovations frame water use issues and decisions to ensure that such framing is consistent with the goals of integrated waterresourcemanagement.

This study focuses on the potential role of technical and institutional innovations for improving watermanagement in a multi-user context in Burkina Faso. We focus on a system centered on three reservoirs that capture the waters of the Upper Comoé River Basin and servicing a diversity of users, including a sugar manufacturing company, a urban water supply utility, a farmer cooperative, and other downstream users. Due to variable and declining rainfall and expanding users’ needs, drastic fluctuations in water supply and demand occur during each dry season. A decision support tool was developed through participatory research to enable users to assess the impact of alternative release and diversion schedules on deficits faced by each user. The tool is meant to be applied in the context of consultative planning by a local user committee that has been created by a new national integrated watermanagement policy. We contend that both solid science and good governance are instrumental in realizing efficient and equitable watermanagement and adaptation to climate variability and change. But, while modeling tools and negotiation platforms may assist users in managing climate risk, they also introduce additional uncertainties into the deliberative process. It is therefore imperative to understand how these technological and institutional innovations frame water use issues and decisions to ensure that such framing is consistent with the goals of integrated waterresourcemanagement.

Full Text Available This article is based on a comparative analysis of Russia and US’s experience of participation in international cooperation in the field of trans-boundary watermanagement. The author showcases the work of Russian-Estonian Commission for Protection and Rational Use of Trans-Boundary Waters and the US-Canadian International Joint Commission. The Russian-Estonian Commission works in accordance with the principle of intergovernmentalism, whereas transnationalism is the founding principle of the International Joint Commission in North America. Though the Russian-Estonian Commission is more efficient in water quality improvement in its area of responsibility, it is early still to claim that intergovernmental cooperation is more effective than transnational cooperation. However, it gives a reason to question the conclusions of the proponents of transnationalism in the international relations theory, who claim that the latter is more efficient. Practical significance of this paper is in the proposed recommendations for further modernization of international cooperation in the field of trans-boundary watermanagement.

The main aim of smart cities is to achieve the sustainable use of resources. In order to make the correct use of resources, an accurate monitoring and management is needed. In some places, like underground aquifers, access for monitoring can be difficult, therefore the use of sensors can be a good solution. Groundwater is very important as a waterresource. Just in the USA, aquifers represent the water source for 50% of the population. However, aquifers are endangered due to the contamination. One of the most important parameters to monitor in groundwater is the salinity, as high salinity levels indicate groundwater salinization. In this paper, we present a specific sensor for monitoring groundwater salinization. The sensor is able to measure the electric conductivity of water, which is directly related to the water salinization. The sensor, which is composed of two copper coils, measures the magnetic field alterations due to the presence of electric charges in the water. Different salinities of the water generate different alterations. Our sensor has undergone several tests in order to obtain a conductivity sensor with enough accuracy. First, several prototypes are tested and are compared with the purpose of choosing the best combination of coils. After the best prototype was selected, it was calibrated using up to 30 different samples. Our conductivity sensor presents an operational range from 0.585 mS/cm to 73.8 mS/cm, which is wide enough to cover the typical range of water salinities. With this work, we have demonstrated that it is feasible to measure water conductivity using solenoid coils and that this is a low cost application for groundwater monitoring.

Most probable number (MPN) and colony-forming-unit (CFU) are two estimates of fecal coliform bacteria concentration commonly used as measures of water quality in United States shellfish harvesting waters. The MPN is the maximum likelihood estimate (or MLE) of the true fecal coliform concentration based on counts of non-sterile tubes in serial dilution of a sample aliquot, indicating bacterial metabolic activity. The CFU is the MLE of the true fecal coliform concentration based on the number of bacteria colonies emerging on a growth plate after inoculation from a sample aliquot. Each estimating procedure has intrinsic variability and is subject to additional uncertainty arising from minor variations in experimental protocol. Several versions of each procedure (using different sized aliquots or different numbers of tubes, for example) are in common use, each with its own levels of probabilistic and experimental error and uncertainty. It has been observed empirically that the MPN procedure is more variable than the CFU procedure, and that MPN estimates are somewhat higher on average than CFU estimates, on split samples from the same water bodies. We construct a probabilistic model that provides a clear theoretical explanation for the observed variability in, and discrepancy between, MPN and CFU measurements. We then explore how this variability and uncertainty might propagate into shellfish harvesting area management decisions through a two-phased modeling strategy. First, we apply our probabilistic model in a simulation-based analysis of future water quality standard violation frequencies under alternative land use scenarios, such as those evaluated under guidelines of the total maximum daily load (TMDL) program. Second, we apply our model to water quality data from shellfish harvesting areas which at present are closed (either conditionally or permanently) to shellfishing, to determine if alternative laboratory analysis procedures might have led to different

Water scarcity is one of the main factors limiting agricultural development. Numerical models integrated with remote sensing datasets are increasingly being used operationally as inputs for crop water balance models and agricultural forecasting due to increasing availability of high temporal and spatial resolution datasets. However, the model accuracy in simulating soil water content is affected by the accuracy of the soil hydraulic parameters used in the model, which are used in the governing equations. However, soil databases are known to have a high uncertainty across scales. Also, for agricultural sites, the in-situ measurements of soil moisture are currently limited to discrete measurements at specific locations, and such point-based measurements do not represent the spatial distribution at a larger scale accurately, as soil moisture is highly variable both spatially and temporally. The present study utilizes effective soil hydraulic parameters obtained using a 1-km downscaled microwave remote sensing soil moisture product based on the NASA Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) using the genetic algorithm inverse method within the Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM). Secondly, to provide realistic irrigation estimates for agricultural sites, an irrigation scheme within the land surface model is triggered when the root-zone soil moisture deficit reaches the threshold, 50% with respect to the maximum available water capacity obtained from the effective soil hydraulic parameters. An additional important criterion utilized is the estimation of crop water consumption based on dynamic root growth and uptake in root zone layer. Model performance is evaluated using MODIS land surface temperature (LST) product. The soil moisture estimates for the root zone are also validated with the in situ field data, for three sites (2- irrigated and 1- rainfed) located at the University of Nebraska Agricultural Research and Development Center near Mead, NE and monitored

The degradation of waterresources by diffuse pollution, mainly due to nitrate and pesticides, is an important matter for public health. Restoration of the quality of natural water catchments by focusing on their catchment areas is therefore a national priority in France. To consider catchment areas as homogeneous and to expend an equal effort on the entire area inevitably leads to a waste of time and money, and restorative actions may not be as efficient as intended. The variability of the pedological and geological properties of the area is actually an opportunity to invest effort on smaller areas, simply because every action is not equally efficient on every kind of pedological or geological surface. Using this approach, it is possible to invest in a few selected zones that will be efficient in terms of environmental results. The contributive hydraulic areas (CHA) concept is different from that of the catchment area. Because the transport of most of the mobile and persistent pollutants is primarily driven by water circulation, the concept of the CHA is based on the water pathway from the surface of the soil in the catchment area to the well. The method uses a three-dimensional hydrogeological model of surface and groundwater integrated with a geographic information system called Watermodel. The model calculates the contribution (m(3)/h or %) of each point of the soil to the total flow pumped in a well. Application of this model, partially funded by the Seine Normandy Basin Agency, to the catchment of the Dormelles Well in the Cretaceous chalk aquifer in the Orvanne valley, France (catchment area of 23,000 ha at D